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From the earliest years in videogames, female characters were usually more passive in nature to their male counterparts. For example, in the very simplistic, but world renowned Donkey Kong, it was your duty as Mario to rescue the Daisy from her evil captor, it was not for a few years yet that you could actually control Princess Peach, in the game Mario Bros. 2 (USA).
However if you remember as far back as the life of the NES, you may remember a small game called Metroid. This game caused a firestorm of surprise, when on its completion it was revealed that the hero, was infact a heroine. I believe this was the first videogame, which exclusively had a female in the lead role.
Moreover in the 16-bit days, there was the appearance of a few more female characters. However I can’t help but feel they were used as novelties, and added no real change to the games themselves. As the characters Tyris Flare and Chun-Li, in Goldenaxe and Street fighter respectively could all be easily overlooked as they were not the greates characters in the games.
On the release of the Nintendo 64, there was at least one game worth owning, this was of course the amazingly enjoyable Super Mario 64, however the plot itself was still bursting with the same old clichés. After baking a cake, Princess Peach invites Mario to have a little nibble, where yet again she is captured by Evil Bowser, and must be rescued by Mario or she will be trapped in the castle walls forever. Whilst this may be a harmless starting point, it could be construed, that Peach is playing a stereotypical role. Where she must not only be rescued by a heroic male, but by baking a cake she is also being portrayed as a housewife, however in its defence, it does cast peach as the ruler of a kingdom.
However, more recently there have been more games where female characters are the protagonists. Here I will of course mention Tomb Raider, which aired on the Playstation in 1996. Starring a rather busty explorer going by the name Lara Croft, the game centred on exploring various caves and catacombs in search of the Atlantean Scion. The control system was niggly at best, and at worst left you frustrated as you jumped headlong, into a wall, which was 50ft above the ground. Not only missing the platform you intended to reach, but also having an unexpected meeting with the granite below, she did of course die, and you had to start again. The game had many flaws, yet it sold in its millions, and is now regarded by many as a classic.
The reason why tomb raider sold so well is very easy to explain, she had over exaggerated female characteristics, millions of spotty teenagers and even adult males couldn’t wait to get their grubby mitts on her, almost enchanted by her pixel based beauty. This turned into an amazing franchising machine, which incorporated action figures and even comic books. It seems as though the games industry is unable, or even unwilling to strike a happy medium. It becomes the case where female characters are portrayed as the usual hapless female, or a slinky, sexy cyber babe.
Which begs the question, will we ever see a game, which just features an average female character? My answer to this question would have to be no. I find it hard to believe that a normal female character would make a profitable game character, if a character does not appeal to the fickle gaming public, then it will not sell games, even in the relatively less publicised title, Urban Chaos. You played a female policewoman, who was hardly unattractive.
In the end I feel it all boils down to selling games. The software houses will make and remake the female character as it sees fit; it will design a character that will appeal to a wide range of the public, so that it can make the game as profitable as possible.
So where then does this leave the future of female characters? Well, it seems to me that there is a popular market for the Lara Croft figure, and judging by the more recent styling of female protagonists, such as Joanna Dark in the epic Perfect Dark, I think there will be a few more gun-toting babes to come.
Thanks for reading CM :)
However if you remember as far back as the life of the NES, you may remember a small game called Metroid. This game caused a firestorm of surprise, when on its completion it was revealed that the hero, was infact a heroine. I believe this was the first videogame, which exclusively had a female in the lead role.
Moreover in the 16-bit days, there was the appearance of a few more female characters. However I can’t help but feel they were used as novelties, and added no real change to the games themselves. As the characters Tyris Flare and Chun-Li, in Goldenaxe and Street fighter respectively could all be easily overlooked as they were not the greates characters in the games.
On the release of the Nintendo 64, there was at least one game worth owning, this was of course the amazingly enjoyable Super Mario 64, however the plot itself was still bursting with the same old clichés. After baking a cake, Princess Peach invites Mario to have a little nibble, where yet again she is captured by Evil Bowser, and must be rescued by Mario or she will be trapped in the castle walls forever. Whilst this may be a harmless starting point, it could be construed, that Peach is playing a stereotypical role. Where she must not only be rescued by a heroic male, but by baking a cake she is also being portrayed as a housewife, however in its defence, it does cast peach as the ruler of a kingdom.
However, more recently there have been more games where female characters are the protagonists. Here I will of course mention Tomb Raider, which aired on the Playstation in 1996. Starring a rather busty explorer going by the name Lara Croft, the game centred on exploring various caves and catacombs in search of the Atlantean Scion. The control system was niggly at best, and at worst left you frustrated as you jumped headlong, into a wall, which was 50ft above the ground. Not only missing the platform you intended to reach, but also having an unexpected meeting with the granite below, she did of course die, and you had to start again. The game had many flaws, yet it sold in its millions, and is now regarded by many as a classic.
The reason why tomb raider sold so well is very easy to explain, she had over exaggerated female characteristics, millions of spotty teenagers and even adult males couldn’t wait to get their grubby mitts on her, almost enchanted by her pixel based beauty. This turned into an amazing franchising machine, which incorporated action figures and even comic books. It seems as though the games industry is unable, or even unwilling to strike a happy medium. It becomes the case where female characters are portrayed as the usual hapless female, or a slinky, sexy cyber babe.
Which begs the question, will we ever see a game, which just features an average female character? My answer to this question would have to be no. I find it hard to believe that a normal female character would make a profitable game character, if a character does not appeal to the fickle gaming public, then it will not sell games, even in the relatively less publicised title, Urban Chaos. You played a female policewoman, who was hardly unattractive.
In the end I feel it all boils down to selling games. The software houses will make and remake the female character as it sees fit; it will design a character that will appeal to a wide range of the public, so that it can make the game as profitable as possible.
So where then does this leave the future of female characters? Well, it seems to me that there is a popular market for the Lara Croft figure, and judging by the more recent styling of female protagonists, such as Joanna Dark in the epic Perfect Dark, I think there will be a few more gun-toting babes to come.
Thanks for reading CM :)
Ah, this is an old one, but it begs the (probably) never before asked question... What is an average female? I think it's a little unfair to say that busty female characters are totally unrealistic, they are the sort of people who become actors and models usually. I know that many people think of actors and models as being unreal people who you will never meet in the street but they actually do walk the streets, have flaws like real people, have emotions and feelings so why are they not "real people". It's a well know fact that there is no such thing as an average person, so why does there seem to be this sudden obsession to have a game with the average female in a lead role?
Why do you say that the only reason Tomb Raider made sales was because of the pixelated parts of the main character? I think that many people enjoyed it because of the gameplay. Sure it was no Half-Life (over-rated by the way) but it had the simple enjoyable gameplay in the same way as Tetris did. Tell me, does guiding blocks into the bottom of a pit in order to create lines of them to accumulate points really sound fun? Well many people believe it is fun even if it doesn't sound fun. Now I'm not a fan of Tomb Raider, it's not my sort of game and I only played it once but you could anger fans who actually did play for the gameplay and if they try to state this they may just get the response "yeah right".
Perhaps the problem is that when a female does take a lead role, people complain because the female character is supposed to be attractive. Why don't people complain about the big burly barbarian in Severance then? It's the same thing, big guy, few words, big muscles is supposed to be what women are attracted to, so why does no one complain about this? Perhaps male players enjoy the idea of being a character that is attractive to women? Perhaps it's because the character was appropriate to the style? Perhaps it's because no one really cares if he's super muscle man with big sword or puzzle solving scrawny guy with quick wit? It's true that there are more feeble male characters in games (Guybrush Threepwood and the likes) but even they tend to retain a certain type of charm. So why is it that the likes of Lara are picked out as negative ways of portraying female heroes when muscly male heroes are accepted as a common occurence? It makes very little sense.
Female heroes are on the rise, you can be female in many RPGs of today, both Diablo games have female characters, fighting games have had female fighters for a long time, action games like metroid have had female leads. Yet, people refuse to accept a single one of these as having a proper female character. Alice had a female character who looked eerie and did not have a skimpy costume or "exaggerated" features but few people seemed to pick up on that. Elaine from the Monkey Island series has never been ridiculously proportioned and though she is not the main character she plays a strong female role who is quite capable herself and is even more confident than the main character, Guybrush. I notice that people haven't realised that there has been an entire series of games named after the female character even though it is the male who is the player and who is in the entire game, Zelda. Zelda was a princess who must be rescued to begin with but since then she has been taking a more active role in her release and though she may still be constantly being captured it could be considered a step in the right direction if looked at. Perhaps the problem is that when a female character comes along they are either ignored or scorned for being too attractive.
It may even be this attitude that women should get special treatment in the gaming community and that people should be careful not to offend them that drives women gamers away. If a female gamer goes on-line they may well be insulted for being female (assuming they say anything) and it will more than likely be assumed they are male if they don't state otherwise but they may also meet the other extreme that tries to treat them like they are special and tries to be considerate but may make them feel like an outsider. Women are persecuted in both the gaming community and the games industry and until a balance is attained this will probably continue.
So is the problem that there aren't enough female characters in games, or is it that people are too worried about discriminating against women to realise that the important thing is that the game is good, not what is represented in it.
Why do you say that the only reason Tomb Raider made sales was because of the pixelated parts of the main character? I think that many people enjoyed it because of the gameplay. Sure it was no Half-Life (over-rated by the way) but it had the simple enjoyable gameplay in the same way as Tetris did. Tell me, does guiding blocks into the bottom of a pit in order to create lines of them to accumulate points really sound fun? Well many people believe it is fun even if it doesn't sound fun. Now I'm not a fan of Tomb Raider, it's not my sort of game and I only played it once but you could anger fans who actually did play for the gameplay and if they try to state this they may just get the response "yeah right".
Perhaps the problem is that when a female does take a lead role, people complain because the female character is supposed to be attractive. Why don't people complain about the big burly barbarian in Severance then? It's the same thing, big guy, few words, big muscles is supposed to be what women are attracted to, so why does no one complain about this? Perhaps male players enjoy the idea of being a character that is attractive to women? Perhaps it's because the character was appropriate to the style? Perhaps it's because no one really cares if he's super muscle man with big sword or puzzle solving scrawny guy with quick wit? It's true that there are more feeble male characters in games (Guybrush Threepwood and the likes) but even they tend to retain a certain type of charm. So why is it that the likes of Lara are picked out as negative ways of portraying female heroes when muscly male heroes are accepted as a common occurence? It makes very little sense.
Female heroes are on the rise, you can be female in many RPGs of today, both Diablo games have female characters, fighting games have had female fighters for a long time, action games like metroid have had female leads. Yet, people refuse to accept a single one of these as having a proper female character. Alice had a female character who looked eerie and did not have a skimpy costume or "exaggerated" features but few people seemed to pick up on that. Elaine from the Monkey Island series has never been ridiculously proportioned and though she is not the main character she plays a strong female role who is quite capable herself and is even more confident than the main character, Guybrush. I notice that people haven't realised that there has been an entire series of games named after the female character even though it is the male who is the player and who is in the entire game, Zelda. Zelda was a princess who must be rescued to begin with but since then she has been taking a more active role in her release and though she may still be constantly being captured it could be considered a step in the right direction if looked at. Perhaps the problem is that when a female character comes along they are either ignored or scorned for being too attractive.
It may even be this attitude that women should get special treatment in the gaming community and that people should be careful not to offend them that drives women gamers away. If a female gamer goes on-line they may well be insulted for being female (assuming they say anything) and it will more than likely be assumed they are male if they don't state otherwise but they may also meet the other extreme that tries to treat them like they are special and tries to be considerate but may make them feel like an outsider. Women are persecuted in both the gaming community and the games industry and until a balance is attained this will probably continue.
So is the problem that there aren't enough female characters in games, or is it that people are too worried about discriminating against women to realise that the important thing is that the game is good, not what is represented in it.
From the earliest years in videogames, female characters were usually more passive in nature to their male counterparts. For example, in the very simplistic, but world renowned Donkey Kong, it was your duty as Mario to rescue the Daisy from her evil captor, it was not for a few years yet that you could actually control Princess Peach, in the game Mario Bros. 2 (USA).
However if you remember as far back as the life of the NES, you may remember a small game called Metroid. This game caused a firestorm of surprise, when on its completion it was revealed that the hero, was infact a heroine. I believe this was the first videogame, which exclusively had a female in the lead role.
Moreover in the 16-bit days, there was the appearance of a few more female characters. However I can’t help but feel they were used as novelties, and added no real change to the games themselves. As the characters Tyris Flare and Chun-Li, in Goldenaxe and Street fighter respectively could all be easily overlooked as they were not the greates characters in the games.
On the release of the Nintendo 64, there was at least one game worth owning, this was of course the amazingly enjoyable Super Mario 64, however the plot itself was still bursting with the same old clichés. After baking a cake, Princess Peach invites Mario to have a little nibble, where yet again she is captured by Evil Bowser, and must be rescued by Mario or she will be trapped in the castle walls forever. Whilst this may be a harmless starting point, it could be construed, that Peach is playing a stereotypical role. Where she must not only be rescued by a heroic male, but by baking a cake she is also being portrayed as a housewife, however in its defence, it does cast peach as the ruler of a kingdom.
However, more recently there have been more games where female characters are the protagonists. Here I will of course mention Tomb Raider, which aired on the Playstation in 1996. Starring a rather busty explorer going by the name Lara Croft, the game centred on exploring various caves and catacombs in search of the Atlantean Scion. The control system was niggly at best, and at worst left you frustrated as you jumped headlong, into a wall, which was 50ft above the ground. Not only missing the platform you intended to reach, but also having an unexpected meeting with the granite below, she did of course die, and you had to start again. The game had many flaws, yet it sold in its millions, and is now regarded by many as a classic.
The reason why tomb raider sold so well is very easy to explain, she had over exaggerated female characteristics, millions of spotty teenagers and even adult males couldn’t wait to get their grubby mitts on her, almost enchanted by her pixel based beauty. This turned into an amazing franchising machine, which incorporated action figures and even comic books. It seems as though the games industry is unable, or even unwilling to strike a happy medium. It becomes the case where female characters are portrayed as the usual hapless female, or a slinky, sexy cyber babe.
Which begs the question, will we ever see a game, which just features an average female character? My answer to this question would have to be no. I find it hard to believe that a normal female character would make a profitable game character, if a character does not appeal to the fickle gaming public, then it will not sell games, even in the relatively less publicised title, Urban Chaos. You played a female policewoman, who was hardly unattractive.
In the end I feel it all boils down to selling games. The software houses will make and remake the female character as it sees fit; it will design a character that will appeal to a wide range of the public, so that it can make the game as profitable as possible.
So where then does this leave the future of female characters? Well, it seems to me that there is a popular market for the Lara Croft figure, and judging by the more recent styling of female protagonists, such as Joanna Dark in the epic Perfect Dark, I think there will be a few more gun-toting babes to come.
Thanks for reading CM :)
However if you remember as far back as the life of the NES, you may remember a small game called Metroid. This game caused a firestorm of surprise, when on its completion it was revealed that the hero, was infact a heroine. I believe this was the first videogame, which exclusively had a female in the lead role.
Moreover in the 16-bit days, there was the appearance of a few more female characters. However I can’t help but feel they were used as novelties, and added no real change to the games themselves. As the characters Tyris Flare and Chun-Li, in Goldenaxe and Street fighter respectively could all be easily overlooked as they were not the greates characters in the games.
On the release of the Nintendo 64, there was at least one game worth owning, this was of course the amazingly enjoyable Super Mario 64, however the plot itself was still bursting with the same old clichés. After baking a cake, Princess Peach invites Mario to have a little nibble, where yet again she is captured by Evil Bowser, and must be rescued by Mario or she will be trapped in the castle walls forever. Whilst this may be a harmless starting point, it could be construed, that Peach is playing a stereotypical role. Where she must not only be rescued by a heroic male, but by baking a cake she is also being portrayed as a housewife, however in its defence, it does cast peach as the ruler of a kingdom.
However, more recently there have been more games where female characters are the protagonists. Here I will of course mention Tomb Raider, which aired on the Playstation in 1996. Starring a rather busty explorer going by the name Lara Croft, the game centred on exploring various caves and catacombs in search of the Atlantean Scion. The control system was niggly at best, and at worst left you frustrated as you jumped headlong, into a wall, which was 50ft above the ground. Not only missing the platform you intended to reach, but also having an unexpected meeting with the granite below, she did of course die, and you had to start again. The game had many flaws, yet it sold in its millions, and is now regarded by many as a classic.
The reason why tomb raider sold so well is very easy to explain, she had over exaggerated female characteristics, millions of spotty teenagers and even adult males couldn’t wait to get their grubby mitts on her, almost enchanted by her pixel based beauty. This turned into an amazing franchising machine, which incorporated action figures and even comic books. It seems as though the games industry is unable, or even unwilling to strike a happy medium. It becomes the case where female characters are portrayed as the usual hapless female, or a slinky, sexy cyber babe.
Which begs the question, will we ever see a game, which just features an average female character? My answer to this question would have to be no. I find it hard to believe that a normal female character would make a profitable game character, if a character does not appeal to the fickle gaming public, then it will not sell games, even in the relatively less publicised title, Urban Chaos. You played a female policewoman, who was hardly unattractive.
In the end I feel it all boils down to selling games. The software houses will make and remake the female character as it sees fit; it will design a character that will appeal to a wide range of the public, so that it can make the game as profitable as possible.
So where then does this leave the future of female characters? Well, it seems to me that there is a popular market for the Lara Croft figure, and judging by the more recent styling of female protagonists, such as Joanna Dark in the epic Perfect Dark, I think there will be a few more gun-toting babes to come.
Thanks for reading CM :)