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I got the inspiration to blog about this topic after reading this rather interesting angle on how the “industry is failing female gamers”. I don’t pretend to be super-knowledgeable on why games continue to be made with a white male protagonist at the helm. My first guess would be because the target audience of said game (the HUGE market share of gamers these days) is white males aged somewhere between 18 – 30ish. It’s a tried and true process, young guys like guns and like to kill things and they seem to relate best to a white, male protagonist in video games.
The point I wanted to make was this; why is that so wrong for female gamers to want too? Why do I always feel kinda weird when I admit to people that I enjoy gore, and shooting and killing as much as (if not more than) my fellow male gamer. Why can’t I like the same things that the guys do and not feel bad whenever I admit that?
Take this quote for instance (from the same article)
I assume that Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch, CEO of the Vancouver-based developer Silicon Sisters Interactive, is talking generally here. Which is fine. But generally speaking, I like what the guys like. If I take a look at the games I have piled up next to my consoles, 90 % of them are games that involve shooting, killing, or maiming in one form or another. My favourite games to play on the Xbox 360 currently are Gears of War 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. On the PC, my first ever game-crush was on Anarki, the cybernetic cyber-board surfer in Quake III! If I had to say it, shooters are in my blood.
That said however, I really do like it when I find a game (a shooter in particular), that gives me the option to choose a female character to represent me in the game. This is important to me. Why? Because, I’m a female, and it’s nice to be represented by the right gender in a virtual world where I spend about 70% of my spare time.
This doesn’t mean that I’m gonna go all “feminist” on anyone for creating games where that doesn’t happen, but it’s nice to see it happening in games where females aren’t typically considered role models. And it’s not an issue of having to put up with the status quo because nothing ever changes, either. While I’d love it if more AAA shooters I play had the option to choose a female character to play, I know that’s not going to happen any time soon, and I’m OK with that. I’m OK with it because I don’t see myself as all that different when I play. I’m a female that likes to roll with the guys and shoot and kill and maim and blow the crap outta stuff! And I do it because I enjoy it – a lot!
One day I wrote an article for Game Culture dot com about a similar topic, and openly stated that I enjoy playing violent games. I was told by one reader that I am “reinforcing every stereotype out there, and I should be ashamed of myself.” I guess that person forgot to read the byline where it clearly stated my name and that I was (obviously) female. Would that person say the same thing to me had they known I wasn’t male?
Perhaps Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch of Silicon Sisters does have a point, though. I don’t know how many female gamers out there enjoy playing violent video games and I’m guessing (especially in New Zealand), that the number is still pretty low. So perhaps I’m part of an even smaller minority of gamers. I’m probably not the target of her comments debating that the industry still hasn’t found a way to cater to most female gamers.
At the end of the day, it’s really all about having fun. If Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch thinks that women can’t possibly have fun doing what the guys do when gaming, she obviously hasn’t had the opportunity to meet gamers like me!
Source article: Game Industry Biz
Haha
I’ll let that comment slide for now, but Gears 3 is coming up, I’ll exact revenge then 
But yeah, I suppose if you’re going to get technical, you’ve made some good points. While I’d prefer to play a female character in a shooter (or in any game that I would normally play, for that matter), at the end of the day, all that matters is your K/D and leaderboard status, especially in shooters. Nobody is going to care what your character looks like, they only care about how much they’ve pwned your ass.
And having said that, that’s an even better reason to have female toons to play more often. I reiterate my point earlier that it would be nice if there was an option to play a female character if I’m putting in as much time (if not more) into my gaming than my male counterparts.
It’s a virtual world that I dedicate a lot of my spare time to, it would be nice to be correctly represented more often than we are in present day shooters.
Two words; Tomb Raider.
I agree with you, strictly for RPG purposes, it would be good to see a female option for the likes of MW3 but I doubt that you’ll see it any-time soon, at least in the competitive FPS market. Female character models in a FPS give developers one of two distinct problems;
Firstly, do they have a smaller hitbox (compared to a male character), offering an obvious advantage in competitive play or, have the same size hitbox, giving you “that totally missed me, look you can see it in the killcam” type scenario. Secondly, do the movement penalties that LMGs (like an M60) have in a game such as MW2 stack for female characters (for realisms sake)?
Now quit your complaining and get back in the kitchen
(just kidding, don’t kill me)