Dude doesn't wanna look like a lady

[Exhuminator]

I almost always choose a female character when I can make my own protagonist. If I have to stare at the backside of my avatar for hours and hours, it might as well be someone I find visually appealing. I guess I'm part of the problem.

That said, I have bought plenty of games that had female protagonists that were not sexualized at all. So it's not like I have any issue with playing as either gender. Just like I don't have a problem playing as a robot in a game, or some anthropomorphized mascot, or as a car...

[J T]

Well, that was an interesting read to say the least.

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't read everything until you mentioned it here.

I absolutely adore the condescending attitude. After your mention of the thread I read it myself and the reply was my comment on it.

No condescension here. I literally hadn't read through all of that thread before starting this one and your post cued me to go back and pay more attention.

[J T]

That said, I have bought plenty of games that had female protagonists that were not sexualized at all.

The indie developers who made Desktop Dungeons wrote an interesting piece on how challenging it was for them to have the diversity of females in their game without making the characters seem unappealing.

http://www.qcfdesign.com/?p=845

[BogusMeatFactory]

Here is how I view the problem, which I feel a lot of people are confused about or simply misunderstand. People are tired of experiencing the viscous cycle of game design. The success of games like Remember Me are starting to point out the elephant in the room that is, believability. We aren't talking about fights in space not being believable, more so the believability of characters.

We want characters that seem real, that have motivations that you can understand and follow and a world that seems to behave in a rational manner, instead of simply moving plot along or padding time.

Why are women the target for the talk on misrepresentation? Women have rarely been focused on as a strong and believable character. Sure there are games where that has been the case, but people want more diversity to create a broader experience for players. Imagine a game with the stereotypical male character, replace it with someone of a different gender or race and think about how the story would change based on that. Games can be more complex when facing social issues and it looks like the audience wants to have games face those problems.

[Exhuminator]

Games can be more complex when facing social issues and it looks like the audience wants to have games face those problems.

This reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles II, a game where racism plays a big part in the story. It's the only game I've played where racism was such a big point of the plot, and actually tangible in essence. I literally got mad sometimes when characters I liked where shit on by other racist characters. By proxy I was feeling the effect of racism myself. I think this is what you're getting at, and I think you're right.

I agree with what you also said... just having a female protagonist doesn't mean the game actually experiences itself through their situation. More often than not, you might as well be playing the typical male action hero with a female suit on. A perfect example of this effect:

[Gunstar Green]

It would be interesting to poll a popular online game and see which gender people play based on their real gender and age group, along with the question of why.

[cha cha]

It's kind of interesting-
In my very limited MMO experience (Guild Wars 1&2) I always played female characters. Occasionally, a guy playing a male character would ask me "R U A GIRL?", to which I replied "ummm, no". The conversation afterwards always boiled down to "If you're a guy, you should play as a guy" and my reply being along the lines of "If I am gonna be playing a VG for hours on end, I'd rather look at a female form and stare at a scantily clad female's ass while endlessly running through wilderness." I then add "Don't you think it actually weirder that you prefer to stare at a shirtless musclebound male's ass for so long?".... and thus they immediately end the conversation.

But to a degree I never noticed the 'sexism' in VGs. In my main specialty, fighting games, I tend to learn towards female characters because their characteristics tend to favor my style of gameplay- quicker, mix up oriented, rushdown. When as male characters tend to focus on power, strength and defense. Obviously there are always exceptions, but it has been a decent rule of thumb.

...and of course, virtual or real- I enjoy looking at females. I'm not ashamed to admit in my younger days that I bought games purely based off an attractive female design. Didn't matter if she was the main character or not, or if she was a strong lead or a side character that was girly and weak. You can, not admit it all you want, but a lot of us have been down the "waifu" road, even after getting married

Don't get it all twisted though, the over-sexualization from females in game adds (especially from those free MMOs adds these days) gets way out of hand. But I am simply saying that I buy games regardless of male or female protagonists, and I think the majority will buy a game based on it being good, not based on a male or female lead.

As an aside, I also bought Remember Me, mainly because I had not learned of all the controversy/delays surrounding it when it came out, and it looked moderately interesting in the one add I saw. I did not for one second care if the lead was male or female, I cared if the system and story were good... which they both were not. The game was just unpolished and felt rushed, it had so much potential though, shame how it turned out... It's a bad example of why the game actually didn't sell (reviewers destroyed it)- to say it was a female lead that caused it. Maybe a good example of the illusions of females leads not selling because of that fact though.

There was a point in there somewhere... ugh, posting in between work sucks sometimes

[darsparx]

Well since I had remember me from when it was a freebie on psn I played some of it too, it's not a terrible game but it's not a game once I do finish it that I will replay over and over like I would say legend of zelda. The bad thing is, metroid has a female lead and that series has been successful time and time again. Personally it's nice to play as a guy in a game but if a developer can put a girl in a lead on a game and make it work and tell a compelling story I'm all for it. Honestly I would love to eventually find some decent games that feature women as leads, especially because I think in this day and age we're at the point where someone somewhere is saying when a new game comes out, "Oh look another game with a male lead".

@cha - that actually makes a lot of sense when playing a mmo. Though I think the common thing I hear a lot of people do when joining those games is creating the dream person they'd want to be and it just seems like a lot of them if they are guys don't want to be girls usually

[Hobie-wan]

Personally it's nice to play as a guy in a game...

But why? You're probably just saying that out of habit.

I don't fire up a game and think "Oh boy I hope I get to play a dude in this game".

Ok granted after playing KOTOR I did think "Man I hope I get to play more games where I'm a wise-ass, inappropriate joke spewing homicidal robot".

[Pulsar_t]

If it's a role-playing games I go for male characters, ditto for games like Saints Row with customisable characters. Why rag on that? It's a basic psychological tendency in many people. If you're actively avoiding games like Mirror's Edge or Remember Me because of their protagonists' gender then that's another story, but I think traditional publishers demand high sales figures for games that generally don't sell that much to begin with.. Consumers prefer games with male leads, that's how the market currently works.