I Shoot Like a Girl: Gender choices in games
As I get close to my week long vacation which I desperately, desperately need, I wanted to come up with an article that will get you girls, and guys, talking. So I was wandering around my house thinking about an article and decided to throw in a game. I chose Rainbow Six 2 because my character was really close to leveling up and I want to get the tank top. And then I stopped and realized that I just made a gaming decision based upon not game play, but because my character was female.
Game developers over the years have realized something. Women, and I’m including girls, play video games. In fact, they’ve realized this much faster than we give them credit for (and much much quicker than most of the male online community). Developers determined that women like to kill things. We love to grenade cars, rocket launch helicopters, hack n’ slash zombies, and turn bad guys into chickens. (No, I’m not kidding. In Arkadian Warriors the female sorceress can get a wand that turns bad guys into chickens. El Pollo Loco!) So in order to reach out to a larger base of fans and players, developers started letting us choose which gender we want to be. And I think it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.
Back in the day, you generally didn’t have a lot of choice as to gender. You might be able to choose your class/race, such as elf, wizard, archer, etc., but it was rare if you could be a female warrior or a male elf. I’m not sure why that was; maybe developers thought women would be more attracted to a certain type of character. Or maybe because the developers didn’t have the abilities in terms of game size and memory to have more than a few choices, so they chose a few characters to be female and a few characters to be male. Either way, if you wanted to play as a certain character you didn’t have a lot of choice in gender.
As more women became active in the gaming world, not only as gamers but as developers, programmers, coders, etc., there was a rise in female characters. I remember the very first game where I could be either a female or a male of each class: Champions of Norrath. I could be a male or female archer, and it was so much fun. Disgaea also let you be either a female or male of most characters. However, those types of games where you could choose gender were few and far between.
Now, several games allow you to pick your gender. Rainbow Six 1& 2, Mass Effect, and Rock Band are just a few games that jump to mind where your character can be male or female and have the same skills and abilities. (I concede that on Rainbow Six you can only pick your gender for multi-player.) You can change their appearance as well, like facial features and skin tone, giving the player to make her character look like well, her, if she wants. It allows the gamer more freedom in choice and allows her (or him) to become more involved in the character. It’s not just a 2 dimensional thing moving around; it’s an extension of you.
Granted, there are many games where you cannot choose the gender of the main character. Many RPG’s have a set main character who you cannot change the gender. FPS is not much better (*cough* Call of Duty 4 *cough*). There are a lot of shooting games where you can only be a male or female and not have a choice of gender. Static gender is especially true for games which have a history and started way back in the day, such as Halo, Half-Life, Devil May Cry, and Ninja Gaiden. These games have a tradition of men being the main characters and so the main characters will stay men.
I admit it’d be a little disconcerting to play as Dantessa instead of Dante in Devil May Cry. However, as women become more of a force in the gaming world, I see game developers growing with us. And as more women enter the field, I believe they will be more prone to creating games that allow the main character to be male or female because they would like to play as a female or male. I predict a time when picking your gender will be the rule rather than the exception. As technology grows and gaming becomes more accessible, developers will start building characters that represent who plays them, and in many cases those players, and therefore characters, will be women. But until that time, I will choose a female character anytime I can and will continue to shoot you like a girl: I will shoot you dead.
Maybe you should get into it, Smiles! Then I can get into the events with you.
Haha.
But yes. It’s at least 110 degrees every day. Way too hot, if you ask me. I’m from Michigan, and it’s nothing like that there. Ever!
Hehe yah it crossed my mind once or twice to get involved in the gaming world, but I figured its alot easier to live that dream through someone else and just mooch off the
LOL
Haha. Spoken like a true slacker!
Dealing with the gaming world can be a pain*LOL* the majority of gamers are kids or just retarded and they can seriously be a pain. Last night I was playing with the gals and some kids were just being retarded. I know we went over this in another forum, but one guy would not stop asking them for their myspace pages to the point where it was annoying his own team. On top of that I get messages all the time with people asking some of the dumbest questions and all I do is admin a gaming site. Much less what all those poor people working for G4 must go through and have to put up with*LOL*
Ha. Boys will be boys, I suppose. Working in the gaming industry can be tough for a lady, but I think it can be just as rewarding. You just have to have a creative mind and a thick skin.
yeah thats true, and boys may be boys but there is no need to be disrespectful…lets just say I put a few boys in their place*LOL*
You and me both, hon. And you would not believe some of the people that call in on the catalogue order line / customer service line. Weirdos.
ROFL!!!! “you would not believe some of the people that call in on the catalogue order line / customer service line” Are you serious? Not even catalogs are safe now adays?
Yah I think in my whole gaming career I’ve had 2 marriage proposals and numerous phone# offers??? Geez that’s what e-harmony is for NOT xbox….
Not even close to safe, Smiles. We have “the shoe guy” (obvious shoe fetish, calls multiple times a day), “the jockey” (he’s under five feet and under a hundred pounds, and completely disgusting), and “the women’s clothes wearer” (he’s the most disgusting. Just trust me on this one). And it sucks, because it’s not nice when you can’t feel comfortable at your own job.
LOL I used to run into the same kinda people at hastings. On guy we called Brother Randy, he was a few cards short a deck. And would give you the weirdest shit to keep” in case the people came to get him” which was normally a piece of paper with squiggly lines on it*LOL* There was the stinky family–I swear not a single one bathed and all looked/smelled like they had a long day on the pig farm.
And for the love of god some of the cloths people wear in public. Not going to go into alot of details, but one involved an extra large person, spandex, no underwear and leave it at that (ugghhh clutches head and shivers at the memories) lol
That’s terrifying. I guess I had some kooks when I was actually working the floor in retail too. When I asked someone “Is there anything I can help you with?” they replied “You can marry me.” Uhhhhhhhhh. Not exactly.
LOL well I don’t think I have ever had anyone asked me to marry them, but retail did have some interesting times*LOL*
My personal favorite was the guy looking for a camcorder to film part of his zombie movie. What a dreamy fellow. *content sigh* I have aspirations to appear in a zombie film one day. Haha.
LOL sounds like your reminicing of some of the good ol days*LOL* My best was recieving an offer by two ladies to keep them company while they watched a scary movie I recomended…unfortunatly I had to close late that night and never got said chance
*LOL*
That’s a shame! Would have almost been as fun as starring in a zombie film with a hot director. . . man. One of these days. . .
LOL yeah It could have been interesting too bad they were only in town as a lay over and were just renting some movies to pass the night. But a Zombie film with a hot director could be interesting as well….ah back in the day.
ROFL!!!!! all these stories are too funny!! yall got me in tears over here…
Zombies ugh! If I had to star in a film i’d prefer it be Halo… are they still gonna come out with that movie? I heard rumors they were gonna start it back up?
The little online movie trailer they had of it was freakin awesome, i heard the same though
I think they probably will.
And I’d like to have a layover.
At the home of a hot, zombie movie director.
But don’t tell my boyfriend. : )
LOL holy shit Advent your a baaaad girl*LOL*
Hahaha. I can’t help it. Sometimes the inner devil crawls right on out and rears its ugly horns.
LOL ok I am seriously going to have to add you to my XBL FL as well, when you and Smiles get UT3 (for rent or buy) we will have to play some matches together, either campain or DM*LOL*
Okay, I’ll allow it. Are you ready for this? My xbox live gamertag is as follow. . .x The Advent x. Are you surprised? Wow. I am transparent.
LOL well I guess I am just as transpartent since mine Is….wait for it…yeah…Ravenous Wulf*LOL*
I think many of us here are xbox oriented. Nothing wrong with that though, I suppose. Why is it wolf with a “u” ? Was “Ravenous Wolf” already taken?
well I had problems with AOL when I first started online, always getting “username taken” messages. So my first username was Gutterwulf. I got it essentially from a book(Shadow Run) I was reading at the time. Well when I first did my first XBL account I wanted to make sure it was Unique off the bat so I used Ravenous(from the movie Ravenous) and Wulf.
When it comes to selecting character/etc names in multiplayer profiles I was always Shaft. Of course, that was probably taken by a thirteen year old boy on XBL before I could have ever dreamed of choosing it. TheAdvent was my Diablo acct name, but that was taken too. Hence x The Advent x.
ahhhhh yeah its a pain in the ass to find a good name that someone hasn’t already grabbed. I wanted my first account name to be Hunter, but alas already taken and I refuse to do that Huner187 or Hunter1972 crap*LOL*
I know! I hate that. I get so annoyed when someone has a name like Yuffie137889. You must have really, REALLY wanted the name Yuffie and had absolutely no creativity at all whatsoever.
Exactly..Im glad someone understands me on that issue, it always irked the shit out of me seeing names like that. You might want to watch it Advent you start agreeing with me too much and the men in the funny white coats will be coming after you as well*LOL*