Sometimes I try defending the game industry from critics who decry it as misogynistic.
“Female video game characters are shallow!” Not all of them, and frankly, most MALE video game characters are shallow too. A lot of games use interactivity to cover up their poor storytelling.
“Female video game characters are objects, solely there to be rescued by men!” I can name ten female characters off the top of my head who are either protagonists or integral to the plot of the game without being damsels in distress. And that list grows every year. We really are getting better.
“Female video game characters are usually portrayed in stripper outfits!” Yeah, well…okay, I don’t have a response for that.
But I was still trying.
And then along come THESE assholes:
Jerks are the same everywhere, the fact that some of them are indie developers doesn’t mean anything. I do believe that there’s still hope for decent female representation in video games, and decent developers should help make that happen.
When Morrigan slapped me with that sexual harassment lawsuit in DA:O, I knew we had gone too far in terms of making empowered lady characters.
Seriously though, we get smexy womens in video games for the same reason why you don’t see ugly chicks modeling clothing in advertizements aimed at other women: Even women subconsciously would rather look at (and presumably play as) an attractive lady. The same thing goes for men. I can’t think of many games where the protagonist is an uggers dude outside of Dead Rising.
You do understand that the clip was made by taking all of the most awkward bits from the show, which was already cut to be pretty awkward, and that the teams were given random themes and only an hour to work on the concepts?
Yep, of this I am fully aware. I’ve seen the whole episode and frankly, I think it just makes it worse.
The settings and genres were random, but Runt, the team that went with FEMINIST APOCALYPSE got “simulation game” as their genre and “post-apocalypse” as their setting.
That is a slow ball right over the plate. That is a field goal from the 15 yard line. That is a stealth kill against an oblivious enemy.
And they were COMPLAINING! They got the easiest genre/setting combination of all. I mean, Cryptic Sea got “violent first-person shooter” and “E-rated kiddie game”! That’s literally impossible to do! And by “literally”, I don’t mean “figuratively”, I mean “literally”. As soon as you put a gun of any kind into a game, it can no longer be rated E. The best you can do is T. This is why the Ratchet & Clank games, despite having no blood, gore or bad language of any kind, are all rated T.
So they have an easy genre/setting matchup, one that doesn’t immediately lend itself to something horribly sexist, and Feminist Apocalypse is the best they can come up with? They didn’t even meet the genre requirement; there was no “simulation” in their pitch.
Sorry, but if anything, watching the entire episode makes them look worse, not better.
Of course, I spent the entire episode saying, “Me! Let ME! I want to do it! I could do it better than any of these guys!”
Although the concept of combining Hitler with dinosaurs is awesome, as Time Gentlemen, Please! has already proven.
I am positively speechless. It’s like a bunch of 5th graders.