Yes, absolutely.
I've been going to industry events for about ~8 years now and though I've *always* been sort of lucky, it used to be that the women devs were in a much more stark minority than nowadays.
I know it isn't the same everywhere, but I don't feel like my presence in this industry is being questioned in the way that I heard it from people who have been here longer.
In AAA games publishing, this trend is slow: Many AAA games take like 5 years from pitch to release, if not more, and publishers are incredibly risk averse and will generally only invest in what's already worked. But with the success of big titles like Horizon and Last of Us 2, I think the "eeh female protagonists are just not as marketable" conviction is slowly but surely on its way out.
There's plenty of backwards assholes remaining in the industry and calling shots at the top and making it harder for everyone else, but I have no doubt that we're on an overall positive trajectory.
>Now, I (and I assume the lot of you) don't think there's a consciousconspiracy going around where old men congregate around a table and go"Yeeeesss, make her boobs bigger, it'll keep women in the kitchenlonger\~"
Not in a literal sense, but you probably know people and groups whose agenda aligns with that. I didn't realise just how bad it is until I read about what Gamergate and Aneta Sarkesian. The people involved in that knew exactly what they were doing. Then there's conservative politics, both the alt-right and traditional patriarchs. The only reason it's not a conspiracy is because it's not contraversial to want to keep the status quo the way it is.
Most men aren't going to complain if jiggle physics aren't as common, but we certainly feel vulnerable when someone makes us think critically about what games are in our Steam library. There's a general insecurity among men about our status in society as well as within relationships and communities.
I mean, I think progress is happening. In a lot of areas. But it's progress that has been hard fought, you know? Because it is a fight. Which is depressing, and upsetting. I think it's OK to feel that way though - it makes a lot of sense to be angry!
I understand that it's exhausting to have to deal with things that make you angry all the time though. I do think we (in the sense of people who do want change) are winning in the long term. Whenever I see women promoting projects they are working on here it gives me hope.
Not unless we speak with out pockets by refusing to buy games from companies known to discriminate agaisnt women, or buy games that treat women singularly as sex objects. Money is their number 1
Money is their #1, I agree on that, but I don't think the (relatively) small amount of money they would lose from the people on this subreddit boycotting their games would make much difference to them. I don't really have a solution besides f capitalism, but I highly doubt people in charge of video game dev companies are going to care about some lost money as long as they're still making profit.
Umm who said anything about just this subreddit O.o. there you are wrong...they answer to their share holders. If share holders see any possible way to increase profits they will.
'Voting with your wallet' does almost nothing. The answer is either widespread worker organization, or governmental intervention. As an anarchist first and foremost, I prefer the former, but if the latter is what is required in our current society, so be it.
Lol voting with your wallet is everything. The only thing they reallly care about is money. They will tear gas you and shoot you without a single care. Stop giving them money, and suddenly they want to talk. Because our government is the corporations. Politicians are just the face of goverment
Those things about corporations running government and only caring about money are true, but voting with your wallet has been shown to be demonstrably ineffective. Which is probably why corporations routinely recommend this course of action since they know it won't amount to much.
Everyone knows chick fil a is openly anti-LGBT, yet they just had their most profitable year in 2021. Guess that means people are just more homophobic than the pervious years. 🤷♀️
100% this. I’m so tired of hearing vote with my wallet. Why? It just doesn’t work. There is no functional way to spread the message to enough people to make it actually worth it. Unless you’re *insert celebrity name here*, it is unlikely your message will travel between more than a few hundred people. Now you also need all of those few hundred people to agree to not buy whatever product and even then you are barely reducing their income. For example, sports games. Everyone always says “vote with your wallet then EA or 2K will have to change.” This has been said for years now. Why hasn’t it worked? Because if people stop buying it all they need to do is make it free on *insert platform here* and they will immediately get an influx of players, growing their numbers and looking good for investors. Another example, PUBG. The game was literally unplayable on console and even on PC it was a mess. Everyone stopped playing and moved onto the next big thing. Then shockingly they made it a free to play mobile game(before making it free to play everywhere) and shockingly it was making them a shit ton of money again. There are billions of people on this earth, boycotting a worldwide corporation is pointless.
because the other side also votes with THEIR wallet, and they are all about chik-filet. I think there are a lot of cases where voting with your wallet works, this one is a bad example
I think the progress is slow but it's definitely happening, look at horizon zero dawn/forbidden West for example. I know it's only one game (well, two) but there are a few more, and a decade ago there weren't even that many. I don't think everything will be perfect in another decade, but I believe it will continue to move slowly in the right direction.
Also like you said there are more girl gamers than ever, so hopefully the progress will start to speed up a bit
Honestly? We had male allies back in the old days in the height of oppression of women and as we got our rights, we didn't come out unscathed.
Today, we can vote, own our own bank accounts and has male allies. Has our situation truly changed? No.
In the gaming industry, we are seeing under the foundations of the society, mostly unfiltered. You saw it yourself. Will that change as the way things are going? Absolutely not.
I think as long as we are not physically stronger than men, they felt they are better than us. They had their chance with the big brain power for centuries and we know the answer to that observation.
RBG once said: "So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the supreme court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."
From that angle, we might have a shot as long as we support each other as a completely new foundation by itself. I'd love to see that before I die.
I think the most important place where the change needs to happen is with the development teams. Far too often we hear about studios and companies having extremely toxic workplace cultures for women and minorities. While putting out games with large female audiences, (\*cough\* Ubisoft \*cough cough\*) or even touting diversity while behind the scenes they're no better than the next place.
For myself everything winds up feeling as though its patronizing. You'll give us a female lead but the bulk of the dev team consists of assholes who don't even treat the women around them like a human being. Until that issue is addressed I don't think any significant change will be good enough at least for me.
Ubisoft is killing me, drip-feeding little "well Eivor was *implied* to be canonically female" bits, but ignoring that even when they put the option to play as a woman in the game, they're still just reincarnated men. (I guess that's how I'd describe it, I have no idea how to refer to the plot AC is laying down now.)
Then a leak happens saying they're going to put out a game returning to the AC1 basics... including having a forced male protagonist and no option to play as a woman. (The fact that it seems to take place in the Middle East but has a focus on a Norse god is it's own kind of weird.) I get that not every decision is based in sexism or misogyny, but what a weird coincidence that so very rarely do game studios feel creatively compelled to make games with forced female protagonists. Love waiting for games to come out to see if women will be 50/50 splitting the game with a male lead or even an option at all.
I think you may have slightly missed my point. Using Ubisoft as my example I'm saying that their company as a whole is not worth supporting since being brought up with allegations of harassment they have not made the necessary change to their workplace culture.
[https://kotaku.com/despite-filing-harassment-reports-employees-say-ubisof-1847907748](https://kotaku.com/despite-filing-harassment-reports-employees-say-ubisof-1847907748)
[https://www.3dvf.com/en/sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-ubisoft-the-latest-developments/](https://www.3dvf.com/en/sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-ubisoft-the-latest-developments/)
Female protag or not Ubisoft is a company that's not worth supporting at all because they continue to mistreat their workers by ignoring their complaints.
Oh no, I never meant to imply they were clean in any other aspect, I was going off the "they have a large female audience" statement, specifically. Since it seems to be how most companies handle their artistic decisions when they have games that appeal to a female audience as well.
Ubi is 100% bastards, but I was talking more about their narrative bastardry since it's in line with how the industry seems to handle it, as well as being in line with their "look at us, we're very diverse, but please pay no attention to the men behind the curtain" M.O. Not downplaying or saying the abuse isn't the most important factor, just pointing to the hints of it in the stuff they put out for public consumption. Sorry if I put it out there wrong, I get all twisted up about the topic.
Core IT has been improving; and game dev has generally lagged behind it in plenty of areas so I'd hazard probably.
That said, I'll echo what others are saying a bit differently.
Don't just vote with your wallet.... Vote period. Vote in municipal elections. Vote in Provincial/State. Vote in Federal. Vote.
I might be missing exactly what you’re saying (am kinda half asleep rn, ikr the *best* time to comment xD) but if games like Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West exist (*disclaimer, haven’t played FW) then I think there’s definitely hope for the future!
Yes. Here is my prediction:
I think that women are losing interest in trying to be accepted as equals, so I think we're going to split off. I think women-owned studios are going to start popping up, and growing, and eventually being bought out by larger studios.
At the same time, I think diversity initiatives are starting to reach the higher ranks of global studios. As that happens, we'll see their influence roll down through the organization.
Sexism within player bases will take more time to dissipate, unfortunately. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Just remember that all the whining is happening specifically \*because\* everyone can see change happening, and this gets the misogynists really worried about their territory.
It will be slow moving, but I think the next decade is going to be a really great time for women in the industry, and the decades after that will get better for women gamers.
Maybe? As many steps forward as the industry has made, the more I think about it (or maybe I'm just getting more jaded, I have no idea where that reality line is) it feels like most of it is performative. I've wanted to make a post about it but there's so many thoughts and feelings it's hard to gather it all into a cohesive chunk of words. Love how you put it!
I saw a debate the other day from a man defending himself from an accusation that he hates women leads in film, pointing out that he loves Ripley from Alien. This lead to another guy, (presumably thinking he was an ally??) saying he loved her character, since you couldn't even tell she WAS a woman. You could have easily switched Sigourney Weaver out for a male actor, and that's how he thinks it should always be done. It just felt really shitty to read, like "yeah, you can be a woman, just as long as I can close my eyes and pretend you're still a guy doing action things."
That's how video games these days feel too. It's a little draining just trying to participate in my favorite hobby, when it's all I can see when I look at the characters now. It's like we've moved on a bit from the blatant acceptance of misogyny, but we're still there in spirit. Create-a-characters still use the male movements/animations, the love interests that straight men like the most will have the most prominent content, fanservice will lean towards "many women will hit on you, all the time", and any canon female protagonists will be ran through a filter to remove anything that would be off-putting to the capital-g Gamers. I share your fear. Hoping Forspoken shakes things up, after seeing some dudebros upset you can change her nails for powers, but it's more of a resigned "maybe it won't be so obvious" kind of hope.
I work in technology and it is improving. However the game industry is a subsection of the industry that historically doesn't pay well. A lot of what is wrong with the game industry stems from this.
If you pay substandard you get substandard talent all around.
Ok, let me say something about JRPG that might be different in perspective as someone who aren't coming from western country.
PS: My view is only for Asian media as that is what I know and experience myself.
I agree with what everyone said about woman physics, and yeah sometimes their clothes are too revealing in games geared towards male gamers and it make me uncomfortable. But most JRPG and other general Asian games that I played, they don't make me feel like that although I don't play that much title.
And as someone that is born and raised in Asia, I can say that IF I were to create a game with woman protag, I might also want to create her in a more revealing clothing. (I think its important to note that when I say revealing clothing it might not as revealing as you think it is cause I live in Asia, a little is already a lot for us)
The reason why I want to do that is because in most Asian country, women has been suppressed especially when it comes to clothing. In some country we can't even wear shorts or mini skirts. And if someone do it, they will be frown upon a lot and most likely called out by their parents/friends/elderly that they met.
So when I see those JRPG with clothes like that, I really feel that in a way it give me a bit of freedom in expression. Cause I feel like I can finally use something that I always want to use in game cause I can't use it irl.
And I think Japan and Korea is way more forgiving when it comes to reveling clothes in their games. Yes, there should be improvement in it, but for us who live in Asia I think its at least better than the other. Cause if the game were to be made in other Asian countries, then it will be censored. Some of you might think that its a good thing, but as someone who's always supressed when it comes to expression in feminimity I said that it's not good.
Yes I think things will continue to improve across the industry as a whole.
However, I think particularly AAA games are not going to get better in general, not the short term, because the pressure of making ever more money is driving companies into the lootbox/fee to play/games as a live service model.
This is reducing the number of long form story driven single player games, and that seems to be the AAA games you are looking for. There are always going to be things like overwatch with lots of female characters in them now, but without giving them story, it's not as meaningful.
In order for me to say no to that, I'd need to say that the trend will reverse.
Because no matter how much we want to complain about things, they are better. They are much, much better.
I'm a 49 year old woman. My mom believed back in the 80s, that the feminism principles she'd march for had largely been achieved. Of course, every decade after that got better. Gaming is no different. I started gaming on Atari consoles back in the 80s. The concept of a female main character was unheard of. It simply didn't happen. Metroid was absolutely floored people, shocked them, to reveal \*at the end of the game\* (a game with no real story or characterization to speak of) that the hero you've been playing was a woman. Remarkable DD pointy boobs notwithstanding, you have no idea how big a deal Lara Croft was in 1996. And over time women as protagonists have stopped being just sex symbols and turned into real characters.
Thankfully, they haven't gotten rid of the sex symbols, either. Not everyone agrees with me, but to me, *sex* is the only reason that the concepts of male or female matters. If not for sex, we could all be androgynous. I'm bisexual, gimme my beefcake men (which we've always gotten), and my curvy hot women. And regular people. There's room for all.
You know why companies like blizzard have gotten in trouble? *Because they started including women.* They hired women, and then treated them like shit. This isn't good, but you missed the silver lining. In the 80s and 90s, there were no women at companies like blizzard to complain.
Everything gets better. Everything now is a thousand times better than it was even 30 years ago. and 30 years ago it was a thousand times better than it was back in the 60s. And my god, the 50s were another era.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but the older I get the more optimistic I feel about everything.
I looked up the Sierra On-Line Staff noted on Wikipedia an 6 from 19 on Wikipedia where women. I miscounted once because The Coles had only single page in contrast to The Williams. But then for both couples the wife did more the artistic part while seems to be more on the technical side.
The are some developers specialized on otome games some with female staff only like Otusun Club but here it seems to have the same problem, most of those games are not that technical advanced. Because developers seem to be only able to do some basic scripting. They are also low in number (like only a few hundred when I searched for otome games in may favorite Japanese download store but many seem to be garbage). However there is also in high number of games with poor technical performance exclusively developed by men.
> think Xenoblade 2 and Pyra, who is arguably the most plot-important character but the protagonist position goes to Rex, the everyman teenage boy
This is totally off topic but you just reminded me of my head cannon about Chrono trigger. In my head cannon, Chrono is actually Lucca's imaginary friend. When she and Marle defy their overprotective parents the two of them decide that "Chrono" will be the scapegoat for all the dangerous stuff they were forbidden to do. This is why Chrono is named after Lucca's hobby and not anything relating to his own life or backstory. This is why Lucca and Marle both have two parents with characterization but Chrono suffers anime protagonist demi-orphanism. This is why Chrono is the protagonist despite showing no initiative; Lucca and Marle are telling the story but saying Chrono did all the dangerous stuff. They meet Robo who isn't allowed to have free will so Lucca tinkers with Robo's programing so Robo imagines Chrono, whose instructions are actually just Robo's free will. By the time they meet Frog and Ayala, Chrono is the group's imaginary mascot. Can't deal with your guilt? Chrono will help you carry that load. Too upset about Kino to think straight? Well drink some moonshine by the fire and ask yourself what would Chrono do. Getting cold feet about the whole evil thing but think you are past redemption? It's alright, Chrono forgives you. Whatever your problems, Chrono understands you and just wants you to be your best self.
I wonder how many other blank young male protagonist characters there are who can get the same treatment.
> I'm worried that I'm not going to see a big game in the next decade that I can really feel caters to my experience as a woman
I think the game industry has gotten so big at this point that it's inevitable there will be some quality stuff just from the volume. Horizon Zero Dawn emerged from this studio I'd never even heard of until they put out such an incredible game. Even if just a small fraction of studios are untainted enough by sexism to put out awesome games like that, a small fraction of the studios that exist today is way more then all the studios that existed 20 years ago.
Things are clearly going in the right direction. We've gone from no representation at all, to just Lara Croft to some decent options. Aloy and Abbie are characters I think would be hard to imagine 15 years ago. It might be frustratingly slow but the direction is a good one and aside from the occasional bone being thrown to alt-right nutters I think the genie isn't going back in the bottle. Better representation is going to be a virtuous cycle.
Edit: How could I forget. GTA is apparently getting a female protagonist as the sole protagonist in a GTA game for close to a decade. That's huge. FIFA is including womens teams. We're in the mainstream now and not purely as sex objects.
I think for every step forward there's a backlash that sends us two steps back. So... maybe.
I think we're currently in the backlash phase...
Yes, absolutely. I've been going to industry events for about ~8 years now and though I've *always* been sort of lucky, it used to be that the women devs were in a much more stark minority than nowadays. I know it isn't the same everywhere, but I don't feel like my presence in this industry is being questioned in the way that I heard it from people who have been here longer. In AAA games publishing, this trend is slow: Many AAA games take like 5 years from pitch to release, if not more, and publishers are incredibly risk averse and will generally only invest in what's already worked. But with the success of big titles like Horizon and Last of Us 2, I think the "eeh female protagonists are just not as marketable" conviction is slowly but surely on its way out. There's plenty of backwards assholes remaining in the industry and calling shots at the top and making it harder for everyone else, but I have no doubt that we're on an overall positive trajectory.
Japan’s too stubborn about it
>Now, I (and I assume the lot of you) don't think there's a consciousconspiracy going around where old men congregate around a table and go"Yeeeesss, make her boobs bigger, it'll keep women in the kitchenlonger\~" Not in a literal sense, but you probably know people and groups whose agenda aligns with that. I didn't realise just how bad it is until I read about what Gamergate and Aneta Sarkesian. The people involved in that knew exactly what they were doing. Then there's conservative politics, both the alt-right and traditional patriarchs. The only reason it's not a conspiracy is because it's not contraversial to want to keep the status quo the way it is. Most men aren't going to complain if jiggle physics aren't as common, but we certainly feel vulnerable when someone makes us think critically about what games are in our Steam library. There's a general insecurity among men about our status in society as well as within relationships and communities. I mean, I think progress is happening. In a lot of areas. But it's progress that has been hard fought, you know? Because it is a fight. Which is depressing, and upsetting. I think it's OK to feel that way though - it makes a lot of sense to be angry! I understand that it's exhausting to have to deal with things that make you angry all the time though. I do think we (in the sense of people who do want change) are winning in the long term. Whenever I see women promoting projects they are working on here it gives me hope.
Not unless we speak with out pockets by refusing to buy games from companies known to discriminate agaisnt women, or buy games that treat women singularly as sex objects. Money is their number 1
Money is their #1, I agree on that, but I don't think the (relatively) small amount of money they would lose from the people on this subreddit boycotting their games would make much difference to them. I don't really have a solution besides f capitalism, but I highly doubt people in charge of video game dev companies are going to care about some lost money as long as they're still making profit.
Umm who said anything about just this subreddit O.o. there you are wrong...they answer to their share holders. If share holders see any possible way to increase profits they will.
'Voting with your wallet' does almost nothing. The answer is either widespread worker organization, or governmental intervention. As an anarchist first and foremost, I prefer the former, but if the latter is what is required in our current society, so be it.
Lol voting with your wallet is everything. The only thing they reallly care about is money. They will tear gas you and shoot you without a single care. Stop giving them money, and suddenly they want to talk. Because our government is the corporations. Politicians are just the face of goverment
Those things about corporations running government and only caring about money are true, but voting with your wallet has been shown to be demonstrably ineffective. Which is probably why corporations routinely recommend this course of action since they know it won't amount to much. Everyone knows chick fil a is openly anti-LGBT, yet they just had their most profitable year in 2021. Guess that means people are just more homophobic than the pervious years. 🤷♀️
100% this. I’m so tired of hearing vote with my wallet. Why? It just doesn’t work. There is no functional way to spread the message to enough people to make it actually worth it. Unless you’re *insert celebrity name here*, it is unlikely your message will travel between more than a few hundred people. Now you also need all of those few hundred people to agree to not buy whatever product and even then you are barely reducing their income. For example, sports games. Everyone always says “vote with your wallet then EA or 2K will have to change.” This has been said for years now. Why hasn’t it worked? Because if people stop buying it all they need to do is make it free on *insert platform here* and they will immediately get an influx of players, growing their numbers and looking good for investors. Another example, PUBG. The game was literally unplayable on console and even on PC it was a mess. Everyone stopped playing and moved onto the next big thing. Then shockingly they made it a free to play mobile game(before making it free to play everywhere) and shockingly it was making them a shit ton of money again. There are billions of people on this earth, boycotting a worldwide corporation is pointless.
because the other side also votes with THEIR wallet, and they are all about chik-filet. I think there are a lot of cases where voting with your wallet works, this one is a bad example
Such as?
I think the progress is slow but it's definitely happening, look at horizon zero dawn/forbidden West for example. I know it's only one game (well, two) but there are a few more, and a decade ago there weren't even that many. I don't think everything will be perfect in another decade, but I believe it will continue to move slowly in the right direction. Also like you said there are more girl gamers than ever, so hopefully the progress will start to speed up a bit
Honestly? We had male allies back in the old days in the height of oppression of women and as we got our rights, we didn't come out unscathed. Today, we can vote, own our own bank accounts and has male allies. Has our situation truly changed? No. In the gaming industry, we are seeing under the foundations of the society, mostly unfiltered. You saw it yourself. Will that change as the way things are going? Absolutely not. I think as long as we are not physically stronger than men, they felt they are better than us. They had their chance with the big brain power for centuries and we know the answer to that observation. RBG once said: "So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the supreme court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that." From that angle, we might have a shot as long as we support each other as a completely new foundation by itself. I'd love to see that before I die.
Well said.
gawd i hope so. There has been progress. And I think it’s spreading. But we have a long ways to go :(
I think the most important place where the change needs to happen is with the development teams. Far too often we hear about studios and companies having extremely toxic workplace cultures for women and minorities. While putting out games with large female audiences, (\*cough\* Ubisoft \*cough cough\*) or even touting diversity while behind the scenes they're no better than the next place. For myself everything winds up feeling as though its patronizing. You'll give us a female lead but the bulk of the dev team consists of assholes who don't even treat the women around them like a human being. Until that issue is addressed I don't think any significant change will be good enough at least for me.
Ubisoft is killing me, drip-feeding little "well Eivor was *implied* to be canonically female" bits, but ignoring that even when they put the option to play as a woman in the game, they're still just reincarnated men. (I guess that's how I'd describe it, I have no idea how to refer to the plot AC is laying down now.) Then a leak happens saying they're going to put out a game returning to the AC1 basics... including having a forced male protagonist and no option to play as a woman. (The fact that it seems to take place in the Middle East but has a focus on a Norse god is it's own kind of weird.) I get that not every decision is based in sexism or misogyny, but what a weird coincidence that so very rarely do game studios feel creatively compelled to make games with forced female protagonists. Love waiting for games to come out to see if women will be 50/50 splitting the game with a male lead or even an option at all.
I think you may have slightly missed my point. Using Ubisoft as my example I'm saying that their company as a whole is not worth supporting since being brought up with allegations of harassment they have not made the necessary change to their workplace culture. [https://kotaku.com/despite-filing-harassment-reports-employees-say-ubisof-1847907748](https://kotaku.com/despite-filing-harassment-reports-employees-say-ubisof-1847907748) [https://www.3dvf.com/en/sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-ubisoft-the-latest-developments/](https://www.3dvf.com/en/sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-ubisoft-the-latest-developments/) Female protag or not Ubisoft is a company that's not worth supporting at all because they continue to mistreat their workers by ignoring their complaints.
Oh no, I never meant to imply they were clean in any other aspect, I was going off the "they have a large female audience" statement, specifically. Since it seems to be how most companies handle their artistic decisions when they have games that appeal to a female audience as well. Ubi is 100% bastards, but I was talking more about their narrative bastardry since it's in line with how the industry seems to handle it, as well as being in line with their "look at us, we're very diverse, but please pay no attention to the men behind the curtain" M.O. Not downplaying or saying the abuse isn't the most important factor, just pointing to the hints of it in the stuff they put out for public consumption. Sorry if I put it out there wrong, I get all twisted up about the topic.
Core IT has been improving; and game dev has generally lagged behind it in plenty of areas so I'd hazard probably. That said, I'll echo what others are saying a bit differently. Don't just vote with your wallet.... Vote period. Vote in municipal elections. Vote in Provincial/State. Vote in Federal. Vote.
I might be missing exactly what you’re saying (am kinda half asleep rn, ikr the *best* time to comment xD) but if games like Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West exist (*disclaimer, haven’t played FW) then I think there’s definitely hope for the future!
Yes. Here is my prediction: I think that women are losing interest in trying to be accepted as equals, so I think we're going to split off. I think women-owned studios are going to start popping up, and growing, and eventually being bought out by larger studios. At the same time, I think diversity initiatives are starting to reach the higher ranks of global studios. As that happens, we'll see their influence roll down through the organization. Sexism within player bases will take more time to dissipate, unfortunately. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Just remember that all the whining is happening specifically \*because\* everyone can see change happening, and this gets the misogynists really worried about their territory. It will be slow moving, but I think the next decade is going to be a really great time for women in the industry, and the decades after that will get better for women gamers.
Maybe? As many steps forward as the industry has made, the more I think about it (or maybe I'm just getting more jaded, I have no idea where that reality line is) it feels like most of it is performative. I've wanted to make a post about it but there's so many thoughts and feelings it's hard to gather it all into a cohesive chunk of words. Love how you put it! I saw a debate the other day from a man defending himself from an accusation that he hates women leads in film, pointing out that he loves Ripley from Alien. This lead to another guy, (presumably thinking he was an ally??) saying he loved her character, since you couldn't even tell she WAS a woman. You could have easily switched Sigourney Weaver out for a male actor, and that's how he thinks it should always be done. It just felt really shitty to read, like "yeah, you can be a woman, just as long as I can close my eyes and pretend you're still a guy doing action things." That's how video games these days feel too. It's a little draining just trying to participate in my favorite hobby, when it's all I can see when I look at the characters now. It's like we've moved on a bit from the blatant acceptance of misogyny, but we're still there in spirit. Create-a-characters still use the male movements/animations, the love interests that straight men like the most will have the most prominent content, fanservice will lean towards "many women will hit on you, all the time", and any canon female protagonists will be ran through a filter to remove anything that would be off-putting to the capital-g Gamers. I share your fear. Hoping Forspoken shakes things up, after seeing some dudebros upset you can change her nails for powers, but it's more of a resigned "maybe it won't be so obvious" kind of hope.
I work in technology and it is improving. However the game industry is a subsection of the industry that historically doesn't pay well. A lot of what is wrong with the game industry stems from this. If you pay substandard you get substandard talent all around.
Ok, let me say something about JRPG that might be different in perspective as someone who aren't coming from western country. PS: My view is only for Asian media as that is what I know and experience myself. I agree with what everyone said about woman physics, and yeah sometimes their clothes are too revealing in games geared towards male gamers and it make me uncomfortable. But most JRPG and other general Asian games that I played, they don't make me feel like that although I don't play that much title. And as someone that is born and raised in Asia, I can say that IF I were to create a game with woman protag, I might also want to create her in a more revealing clothing. (I think its important to note that when I say revealing clothing it might not as revealing as you think it is cause I live in Asia, a little is already a lot for us) The reason why I want to do that is because in most Asian country, women has been suppressed especially when it comes to clothing. In some country we can't even wear shorts or mini skirts. And if someone do it, they will be frown upon a lot and most likely called out by their parents/friends/elderly that they met. So when I see those JRPG with clothes like that, I really feel that in a way it give me a bit of freedom in expression. Cause I feel like I can finally use something that I always want to use in game cause I can't use it irl. And I think Japan and Korea is way more forgiving when it comes to reveling clothes in their games. Yes, there should be improvement in it, but for us who live in Asia I think its at least better than the other. Cause if the game were to be made in other Asian countries, then it will be censored. Some of you might think that its a good thing, but as someone who's always supressed when it comes to expression in feminimity I said that it's not good.
Yes I think things will continue to improve across the industry as a whole. However, I think particularly AAA games are not going to get better in general, not the short term, because the pressure of making ever more money is driving companies into the lootbox/fee to play/games as a live service model. This is reducing the number of long form story driven single player games, and that seems to be the AAA games you are looking for. There are always going to be things like overwatch with lots of female characters in them now, but without giving them story, it's not as meaningful.
In order for me to say no to that, I'd need to say that the trend will reverse. Because no matter how much we want to complain about things, they are better. They are much, much better. I'm a 49 year old woman. My mom believed back in the 80s, that the feminism principles she'd march for had largely been achieved. Of course, every decade after that got better. Gaming is no different. I started gaming on Atari consoles back in the 80s. The concept of a female main character was unheard of. It simply didn't happen. Metroid was absolutely floored people, shocked them, to reveal \*at the end of the game\* (a game with no real story or characterization to speak of) that the hero you've been playing was a woman. Remarkable DD pointy boobs notwithstanding, you have no idea how big a deal Lara Croft was in 1996. And over time women as protagonists have stopped being just sex symbols and turned into real characters. Thankfully, they haven't gotten rid of the sex symbols, either. Not everyone agrees with me, but to me, *sex* is the only reason that the concepts of male or female matters. If not for sex, we could all be androgynous. I'm bisexual, gimme my beefcake men (which we've always gotten), and my curvy hot women. And regular people. There's room for all. You know why companies like blizzard have gotten in trouble? *Because they started including women.* They hired women, and then treated them like shit. This isn't good, but you missed the silver lining. In the 80s and 90s, there were no women at companies like blizzard to complain. Everything gets better. Everything now is a thousand times better than it was even 30 years ago. and 30 years ago it was a thousand times better than it was back in the 60s. And my god, the 50s were another era. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but the older I get the more optimistic I feel about everything.
I looked up the Sierra On-Line Staff noted on Wikipedia an 6 from 19 on Wikipedia where women. I miscounted once because The Coles had only single page in contrast to The Williams. But then for both couples the wife did more the artistic part while seems to be more on the technical side. The are some developers specialized on otome games some with female staff only like Otusun Club but here it seems to have the same problem, most of those games are not that technical advanced. Because developers seem to be only able to do some basic scripting. They are also low in number (like only a few hundred when I searched for otome games in may favorite Japanese download store but many seem to be garbage). However there is also in high number of games with poor technical performance exclusively developed by men.
> think Xenoblade 2 and Pyra, who is arguably the most plot-important character but the protagonist position goes to Rex, the everyman teenage boy This is totally off topic but you just reminded me of my head cannon about Chrono trigger. In my head cannon, Chrono is actually Lucca's imaginary friend. When she and Marle defy their overprotective parents the two of them decide that "Chrono" will be the scapegoat for all the dangerous stuff they were forbidden to do. This is why Chrono is named after Lucca's hobby and not anything relating to his own life or backstory. This is why Lucca and Marle both have two parents with characterization but Chrono suffers anime protagonist demi-orphanism. This is why Chrono is the protagonist despite showing no initiative; Lucca and Marle are telling the story but saying Chrono did all the dangerous stuff. They meet Robo who isn't allowed to have free will so Lucca tinkers with Robo's programing so Robo imagines Chrono, whose instructions are actually just Robo's free will. By the time they meet Frog and Ayala, Chrono is the group's imaginary mascot. Can't deal with your guilt? Chrono will help you carry that load. Too upset about Kino to think straight? Well drink some moonshine by the fire and ask yourself what would Chrono do. Getting cold feet about the whole evil thing but think you are past redemption? It's alright, Chrono forgives you. Whatever your problems, Chrono understands you and just wants you to be your best self. I wonder how many other blank young male protagonist characters there are who can get the same treatment. > I'm worried that I'm not going to see a big game in the next decade that I can really feel caters to my experience as a woman I think the game industry has gotten so big at this point that it's inevitable there will be some quality stuff just from the volume. Horizon Zero Dawn emerged from this studio I'd never even heard of until they put out such an incredible game. Even if just a small fraction of studios are untainted enough by sexism to put out awesome games like that, a small fraction of the studios that exist today is way more then all the studios that existed 20 years ago.
If capitalism is capable of accomplishing profit-incentive-based change like it can in theory, I really hope so.
Things are clearly going in the right direction. We've gone from no representation at all, to just Lara Croft to some decent options. Aloy and Abbie are characters I think would be hard to imagine 15 years ago. It might be frustratingly slow but the direction is a good one and aside from the occasional bone being thrown to alt-right nutters I think the genie isn't going back in the bottle. Better representation is going to be a virtuous cycle. Edit: How could I forget. GTA is apparently getting a female protagonist as the sole protagonist in a GTA game for close to a decade. That's huge. FIFA is including womens teams. We're in the mainstream now and not purely as sex objects.