Can the sexism in these types of games stop?

[Alardem]

After all, how many female villains or monsters can you name that are both clearly feminine AND not 'sexy'?

Siren from Killing Floor
Witch from L4D
Spider queen from Doom 3
GLaDOS from Portal

Alma from F.E.A.R., minus her 'sexy' illusion from FEAR 2. (Though I think that game actually had a largely underrated twist on the 'seductress' cliche.)

System Shock 2's midwives. Imagine a female 'Gatherer' behaving like that.

[alyssak]

Isn't that the point though? To do the unexpected, the as you say "disturbing and repulsive" The one female monster that comes to mind is the witch in Left 4 Dead. While I have never played the game I've seen it played and she is pretty dang creepy without relying on sex appeal for make her a female.

---

I seems I took to long with that post and others beat me to it.

[Alardem]

Isn't that the point though? To do the unexpected, the as you say "disturbing and repulsive" The one female monster that comes to mind is the witch in Left 4 Dead. While I have never played the game I've seen it played and she is pretty dang creepy without relying on sex appeal for make her a female.

---

I seems I took to long with that post and others beat me to it.

The problem with that and Killing Floor is that they're not at all horror games - they're a fun excuse to blow up things with friends and have a laugh. I do actually love the design of L4D's Special Infected (particularly the Spitter and her monstrously long neck), but dread and horror are not what come to mind when I'm busy blowing up dozens of grey people.

Regardless, there's plenty of ways to use female characters both as protagonists and antagonists in horror games without acting like a pervert. At the very least, if you're going to have nudity, make it equal-opportunity.

Actually, what's interesting about Frictional's games and their imitators is that they flip the notion of the male action hero in a horror game and reduce them to scared, helpless dudes in distress. It'd be nice to have a female protagonist who'd be the opposite of these men. Resident Evil comes close, but it hasn't been a horror franchise for a long time and some of its women are dressed rather impractically (Ada Wong comes to mind.)

[Statyk]

Let's see the amount of games I can remember... *ahem*

• Mrs. Pac-man
• Metroid
• Mirror's Edge (my favorite and is getting a sequel soon <3)
  
• Hydrophobia
• Tomb Raider (More recent ones are more fitting. Especially the last one. She was very well designed)
• Amnesia: Justine
• Alice: Madness Returns
• Portal 1 and 2
• Last of Us (You play as a child girl who fights zombies and baddies to protect a grown man)
• Borderlands
• Jet Set Radio
• Sanctum 1 and 2
• Elder Scrolls series
• Fable 2 and 3
• Silent Hill 3
• Remember Me
• Some parts of The Walking Dead (though there are multiple stories)
• MOBAs such as League of Legends or Dota
• Gears of War 3 (not sure of 2. I just watched my sis play them time to time)
  
• Some Resident Evil
• Some Final Fantasy
• Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
• Even in Team Fortress 2, The female Administrator and Her assistant "own" the male mercs. Even if they are not in the game directly (beside the Administrator announcer)
• Jet Force Gemini
• Perfect Dark
• Dead or Alive
• Setshido Blade
• Tenchu Z

And that's pretty much all I have off the top of my head right now, perhaps a bit more than I should. I think it's time to give credit where credit is due, rather than pull ideas out of your ass. It generally gives a negative aura about a person when there is ignorance involved.

It should be illegal to hurt someone's brain this much. Perhaps this should just be closed. I'll let the members choose, since it seems like a lively topic, though completely ridiculous.

[SurvivalHorror]

Just like how writing paper is optimized for right handers, isn't gonna change anytime soon but I wouldn't say it's sexism, lets face it there's always gonna be more guy gamers and game companies have to accommodate this.

[Alardem]

Let's see the amount of games I can remember... *ahem*

• Mrs. Pac-man
• Metroid
• Mirror's Edge (my favorite and is getting a sequel soon <3)
  
• Hydrophobia
• Tomb Raider (More recent ones are more fitting. Especially the last one. She was very well designed)
• Amnesia: Justine
• Alice: Madness Returns
• Portal 1 and 2
• Last of Us (You play as a child girl who fights zombies and baddies to protect a grown man)
• Borderlands
• Jet Set Radio
• Sanctum 1 and 2
• Elder Scrolls series
• Fable 2 and 3
• Silent Hill 3
• Remember Me
• Some parts of The Walking Dead (though there are multiple stories)
• MOBAs such as League of Legends or Dota
• Gears of War 3 (not sure of 2. I just watched my sis play them time to time)
  
• Some Resident Evil
• Some Final Fantasy
• Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
• Even in Team Fortress 2, The female Administrator and Her assistant "own" the male mercs. Even if they are not in the game directly (beside the Administrator announcer)
• Jet Force Gemini
• Perfect Dark
• Dead or Alive
• Setshido Blade
• Tenchu Z

And that's pretty much all I have off the top of my head right now, perhaps a bit more than I should. I think it's time to give credit where credit is due, rather than pull ideas out of your ass. It generally gives a negative aura about a person when there is ignorance involved.

It should be illegal to hurt someone's brain this much.

Cool it on the defensiveness. I'd refute that list, but you don't need to take personally a comment on how many horror stories are focused on the male perspective. Getting emotional is a woman's territory.

Many of those games either have the gender be utterly arbitrary (either through sticking a pink pixel on pacman, or making you a mute), have the man as the primary perspective (you only get to control TLOU's Ellie for a short period of time and the Administrator is a disembodied character who only gets development outside the actual game), or the woman is alone amongst men (Left 4 Dead and Borderlands - Gears of War 3 has two women, which I suppose is a step up in such a bloody series.)

Hydrophobia, Alice 2, Silent Hill 3, Tomb Raider, Portal and Mirror's Edge are good examples of female-led games in the industry, but there are infinitely more examples of male protagonists. Pointing out this inequality and asking for a step towards having more female protagonists is not the same as accusing gamers/humanity of having cooties, so much as it is a want to write different stories for different audiences. It's clear that Amnesia's got fans of both genders because it's scary and has a good story - why not also give the women a protagonist they can relate to, rather than a sex object like in Haunting Ground? We should ask for creativity, and not just keep our minds set in the same mold.

Heather's the only main girl in the Silent Hill series, and her story was focused on the theme of motherhood and pregnancy. There are plenty of other psychologically-twisted tales to tell with a female protagonist. Hell, I can imagine the last few entries in the series as having a heroine and not changing much in the process - and why the hell not? The more we get used to the idea of having stories focusing on women, the more accustomed we'll be to it.

[Statyk]

I am a bit defensive because it's false accusations on the industry in a way. It was said there was almost no women in newer games. While I can kind of agree to there being a smaller ratio of men:women, I think it's a bit nonsensical to leave out any that DO exist simply because more games have male protagonists, like you said in your second paragraph. Simply because they weren't the one single protagonist of the game, same as the men in those game, it should be ruled out? That's a bit unfair, wouldn't you agree?

And as for it being more directed towards horror games, I mean, not many horror games have been made in comparison to other genres, simply because the horror genre doesn't sell as well as the other genres. So of course there are going to be less games, and with it, less games with sex differences. I can name one off the top of my head that was always a favorite, Fatal Frame. A female protagonist off to find and save her brother who went missing.

What I'm saying is, yes there are less female protagonists, but how is pointing it out less sexist than the accusation? This argument has always rustled my jimmies... Simply because it's pointless. A female will be depicted when necessary and as directed. And any game who falls in the "sexist" category usually dies off, is shamed, and/or isn't honored (X-Blades for example) like games in which there is no sexism involved (Mirror's Edge on the contrary).

Just the title of this thread bugs me because there is no sexism in these games in any way and yet it's stated like a fact.

[Alardem]

I am a bit defensive because it's false accusations on the industry in a way. It was said there was almost no women in newer games. While I can kind of agree to there being a smaller ratio of men:women, I think it's a bit nonsensical to leave out any that DO exist simply because more games have male protagonists, like you said in your second paragraph. Simply because they weren't the one single protagonist of the game, same as the men in those game, it should be ruled out? That's a bit unfair, wouldn't you agree?

And as for it being more directed towards horror games, I mean, not many horror games have been made in comparison to other genres, simply because the horror genre doesn't sell as well as the other genres. So of course there are going to be less games, and with it, less games with sex differences. I can name one off the top of my head that was always a favorite, Fatal Frame. A female protagonist off to find and save her brother who went missing.

What I'm saying is, yes there are less female protagonists, but how is pointing it out less sexist than the accusation? This argument has always rustled my jimmies... Simply because it's pointless. A female will be depicted when necessary and as directed. And any game who falls in the "sexist" category usually dies off or isn't honored (X-Blades for example; horrible game) like games in which there is no sexism involved (Mirror's Edge on the contrary).

There's an interesting article from Escapist Magazine - dated 2005, but still containing striking observations about men and women in horror games:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles...rous-Women

It's funny to see how things have changed in the space of a few years, due to the modern trend of having games where you're a terrified, defenseless man. We're on a forum about one.

---

Also, can we please move this to OFF-TOPIC? This troll-bait really needs to get its grubby hands out of the spoiler section, where story discussion should belong.

[Kman]

sure is anita sarkeesian in here

[Alardem]

sure is anita sarkeesian in here

That woman isn't posting outrageous threads in the Spoilers section.