Women gamers: How many in each community or kind of game?

[SpiderFem]

Oh, and a side note on that. As long as Lara Croft, Lineage II, and every other female-eyecandy-only game exists, no male gamer will be able to complain about females liking bishonen eye candy and "weak" sensitive males without some level of hypocrisy.

I'm sure this has been already mentioned, but to many male gamers characters like that feel insulting, it's like the game expects us to be so primitive and simple minded that we can overlook everything else in a bad movie/anime/game as long as there are good looking women to stare at. (&cont.)

More power to you. Perhaps one of many reasons the Mass Effect games did so well was that the depictions of characters and their sexuality did not patronize either sex of player. True, asari, but their entire culture was based on their sexual behavior, so for them to be dressed modestly would've just been hilarious. I think the first two games provide a good example of sex in a game being depicted in a way that was not gratuitous and insulting. I did not play the third because of what it takes to buy it.

I will add, on the topic of JRPGs, that I don't play them because I don't consider most to be roleplaying. The characters are laid out for you and you usually have no real effect on their personalities and arcs, just on superficial events. I mentioned them because I do like pretty male faces here and there, including in games, and because it was earlier suggested that this was the reason for females choosing to play them.

Is that mandatory? Certainly not. Of my two current companions in Skyrim, one is a modded handsome Imperial and one is Ahtar. The only reason I haven't uninstalled Fallout 3 yet is because I miss Charon and Fawkes, and I keep thinking I'll go back and see them again. So if a character is well written and their story is compelling, I don't care particularly if they're handsome, pretty, or ugly. But if the game is going to be shallow and beat-'em-up oriented? Of course I want to see parity in the fan service.

[Menegrothx]

I posted this in the screenshot thread but what the heck, it feels relevant. I've got to say that both of the female party members in Planescape (Annah and Fall from grace) were really well done, but the writing was all around superb in that game so it was to be expected. Ravel the night hag was also a very intresting character.

[Key-Glyph]

I will add, on the topic of JRPGs, that I don't play them because I don't consider most to be roleplaying. The characters are laid out for you and you usually have no real effect on their personalities and arcs, just on superficial events.

First, welcome to the boards!

Second, I like that you mentioned this, because it really made me consider what constitutes as a "narrative," and which forms of it I like in my games. Companies are always going on about women wanting titles with "narrative," but this usually translates into "a lot of written dialogue," which is really only one type of storytelling. They do a disservice to consider narrative only in the way books and novels use it -- not to mention that there are even shades within the category of dialogue-heavy games, as you pointed out (player influence vs. linear progression of plot).

Games with really interesting narrative ideas at their core can be just as captivating as ones with lots of written exposition, because players are invited to impose their own imaginations on the work. I enjoy exploring a game's universe in my own thoughts just as much, if not sometimes more, than I do having that universe, or my character's actions/motives upon it, officially explained to me through walls of text from the source material. I get pretty invested in rescuing animals and outsmarting Robotnik's machines in Sonic the Hedgehog because those plot kernels resonate in my mind for some reason -- and I'm even talking pre-Sonic 3, with its fairly elaborate segways from zone to zone, even act to act (e.g. the cannon at the end of Carnival Night, the fire in Angel Island Act 2) -- and the exciting encounters with Knuckles, of course. Just as another player might imagine Sonic as the cleverest and fastest act clearer, or perhaps the most dedicated item-hunter or Knuckles-hater, my Sonic is often a thorough animal-rescuer. I imposed this priority on his personality. (My Sonic is also sympathetic towards Knuckles.)

And, of course, different ideas are going to hook different people, even if all other things are equal. Swooping around on a flying ostrich and besting my foes in Joust? This plot never gets old. Piloting a spaceship in shooting incoming aliens in Space Invaders? This one just doesn't move me. This doesn't mean that I'd avoid Space Invaders for reasons surrounding its premise if it were actually a more enjoyable game experience for me; I'm just saying that the wacky concept of Joust drew me to it and seemed more fun before I ever gave Space Invaders a second thought, and is an important variable in my attraction to it.

So, for SpiderFem, having control over her character development in a narrative is very important. For somebody else, having a huge cast of character follow a complicated linear plot may be more important. And for a third, maybe tromping around as Link in A Link to the Past is narrative heaven, with the main character being an undefined blank slate to etch with their own ruminations.

[SpiderFem]

I will add, on the topic of JRPGs, that I don't play them because I don't consider most to be roleplaying. The characters are laid out for you and you usually have no real effect on their personalities and arcs, just on superficial events.

First, welcome to the boards!
...
So, for SpiderFem, having control over her character development in a narrative is very important. For somebody else, having a huge cast of character follow a complicated linear plot may be more important. And for a third, maybe tromping around as Link in A Link to the Past is narrative heaven, with the main character being an undefined blank slate to etch with their own ruminations.

Thanks!

That's a really excellent point as well, and I think you phrased it perfectly. The only FPS games I've played all the way through are Bioshock (I and II) and Deus Ex, which have RPG elements and some dialogue, but which mostly tell their stories through their settings (and those settings are among the best developed in any game, although Deus Ex hasn't aged as well).

I personally am a bigger fan of this, and of environmental storytelling in general, than of massive text/dialogue infodumps. I could never sit through Heavy Rain, for instance. But some of the audio diaries in Bioshock are tear-jerking when you think about where you found them.

Mass Effect tells a lot of its story through dialogue, and sometimes I feel it bogged down a little, but for the most part it breaks that up with action (mostly that form of pacing is controlled by the player, since it's an open world game). The addictive thing about that game's story is that you can get little pieces of it from everywhere in the world, and you can choose whether to pick them up or not - there's a lot more info to it than a game like Bioshock, but it's also ultimately rewarding to begin to understand what the background conversations you overhear are really about.

[MrPopo]

The only FPS games I've played all the way through are Bioshock (I and II) and Deus Ex, which have RPG elements and some dialogue, but which mostly tell their stories through their settings (and those settings are among the best developed in any game, although Deus Ex hasn't aged as well).

See, I still think the setting of Deus Ex works really well, it's the general interface that hasn't aged as well. It's definitely better than the mess of System Shock's interface, but it still has vestages of the "button for every individual thing" era of PC games.

[Menegrothx]

That's a really excellent point as well, and I think you phrased it perfectly. The only FPS games I've played all the way through are Bioshock (I and II) and Deus Ex, which have RPG elements and some dialogue, but which mostly tell their stories through their settings (and those settings are among the best developed in any game, although Deus Ex hasn't aged as well).

I personally am a bigger fan of this, and of environmental storytelling in general, than of massive text/dialogue infodumps. I could never sit through Heavy Rain, for instance. But some of the audio diaries in Bioshock are tear-jerking when you think about where you found them.

Sounds like you need to play through System Shock 2. Both Bioshock and Deus Ex owe a great deal to the System Shock series. It has also one of the coolest female (voiced) villains in video game history (kinda like GLaDOS of Portal, except more bad ass)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock_2

[flojocabron]

relevant to this topic?

[AshleyG.64]

I personally never played video games as a little girl. My parents didn't like it, I went to a crazy catholic school that also didn't like it, and It felt like it wasn't "right" for me to play video games as a kid.
Today, I'm 17 and I collect retro video game consoles/games. I feel like I enjoy it because I was deprived from it as a kid. Does that seem strange?
Well whatever, I love my old school games.

[Forlorn Drifter]

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/20232-why ... lidationr/

An aticle from one of my favorite gaming sites. Used to use the forums, but only certain ones are active enough to warrant use.

I think the writer has a point. People within the nerd culture assume any halfway good looking girl who shows interest in nerdy things are either looking for attention, or, as a friend of mine puts it, "So full of plastic they could provied plastic for console cases for years to come."

I admit, I get a bit skeptical of it. I do with everyone though. I get aggrivated as it has become so "cool" in some peoples eyes to be nerdy while still being classic cool. I see so many people around with shirts from games, comics, and more without even being able to recognize the characters/games/movies being referenced...

[Czernobog]

I personally never played video games as a little girl. My parents didn't like it, I went to a crazy catholic school that also didn't like it, and It felt like it wasn't "right" for me to play video games as a kid.
Today, I'm 17 and I collect retro video game consoles/games. I feel like I enjoy it because I was deprived from it as a kid. Does that seem strange?
Well whatever, I love my old school games.

Part of the reason I started collecting was to play games I never had the chance to when I was younger, whether it be that I had no way of obtaining at the time, or I chose something else due to restricted finances. A big part of my initial drive to collect was because I felt like there were a lot of important/intriguing games I missed out on.