If intelligent, legally correct games such as The Longest Journey, Beyond Good and Evil, and Dreamfall sold well, then publishers would be willing to fund more games featuring realistically dressed female protagonists, and we wouldn’t need to put girls with glaring cleavages in our games all the time.
On that thought, if you think you are a strong advocate of fair and realistic portrayal of both genders in games but did not buy any of the above three games, you need to put your money where your mouth is. If you did not buy a game, then you do not exist from the publishers’ point of view. If publishers do not see enough buyers for one particular product, they will be very hesitant to publish anything like it in the future.
So next time you find yourself in the market for games, deciding whether you should buy an all-too-popular game that you can easily borrow from your friends who already bought it(*cough* Mario *cough*), versus buying a game that is trying to push boundaries but isn’t getting enough support from the layman buyers, maybe you should consider buying and supporting that revolutionary game then share it with your friends.
3 comments:
So, you're saying that a misogynist portrayal of women is excusable because not enough people buy non-misogynistic games?
All right, knee jerk reaction aside...
It's far more complex than you're making it out to be.
Most of the people involved in this discussion HAVE purchased and played the games that have realistic depictions of women. But the reason these games didn't sell well has far more to do with the lack of marketing to the right demographic. The industry seems to think it's bread is buttered on the teenage boy side of the market. While this is changing, it seems to be changing in the "let's make casual games for women" direction, rather than the "let's make our games have more appeal for everyone" direction. Are developers to "blame" for this? Partially, perhaps. But the publishers should be taking a fair portion of the responsibility as well.
Yes, corvus, games like Beyond Good and Evil and Longest Journey are marketing it at the wrong demographic. They made a gamble that there would be enough people who like those games to make a profit. They are on partially correct, because even though the population size is there, these people are very careful at where they spend their money. Too careful, in my experience. I have spoke with many people in this demographic, and they talk with a strong sense of justice, but whenever I ask them if they bought these game. Almost none of them did. They usually either borrowed it from a friend or family (there’s usually that one person who buys games like crazy, bikini chain mail or not), or they simply “know about it,” but never played it. If you don’t believe me, go to a women-gamer web site, ask the most outspoken feminists if they own these games.
Yes, publishers having been making games specifically for casual girls, but these are NOT the games we’re looking for. Maybe these casual games will evolve past the cutesy theme over the year as more women gamers turn hardcore. Maybe then, there will be enough paying customers in the demographic we are looking at. Here’s to hoping.
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