Let me start this with a little story. Last year, a pop culture internet critic started a Kickstarter ,a fundraising website used mainly for indie projects, to gather funds from donations. This was to fund a short series of web videos discussing the multiple stereotypes and clichés that are present in video games, from the past to the modern times. While the project was indeed funded, it also met with some ''criticisms.'' The critic was met with multiple threats of violence, death, and rape. Email accounts were hacked and personal information was spread out. A wikipedia page about the critic was defiled with slurs and pornographic imagery. There was even a flash-based game where you punch the critic multiple times in the face, leaving the face black and bruised to your heart's content. Though this did not stop the critic, whose name is Anita Saarkeesian, or the series from being funded (it even surpassed its initial goal), the negative response from these ''male rights activists'' have revealed a dark side of the video game community.
What was going to be a simple web series that could have been simply ignored by those who do not agree with her, became a catalyst of discussion of the acts of sexism that is present in the world of video games. And just as Anita aimed for, I believe the tropes and stereotypes that are present in video games stories should be discussed not just to acknowledge and make these clichés known to the developers and community, but also because this could lead to a creative breakthrough in video games as an artistic medium.
The first reason for the need of discussion is simply to acknowledge that there is indeed a type of gender gap in video games today, on both the industry and the community sides. For example, the director of an upcoming game called Remember Me was rejected by different publishers and backers for having a woman named Nilin as the playable protagonist. The reason for this was, as director Jean-Max Moris was told and states in an interview, ‘’Well, we don’t want to publish it because that’s not going to succeed. You can’t have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that’’(Prell). Whether you believe it is justified or not, cases such as this, along with the Kickstarter debacle stated earlier, shows signs that not all is right. When publishers actively say you cannot have a female lead in a game out of fear that it will not sell, there is something amiss and in need of discussion.
My second reason for the much needed discussion of the negative stereotypes is for the benefit of creativity. As of this writing, the video game industry is on the verge of a crash, according to many gamers. Due to a struggling economy, expensive games that return low profits, and the staggering amount of contempt consumers are gaining toward the publishers, the industry needs to start changing if it wishes to stay afloat any longer. One of these remedies can be a better catering to female gamers, which percentage of those who play games these days are been on the rise. Also, there is a severe lack of games with female protagonists, while games that have female characters are usually regulated to the side, many times placed within a stereotypical role. The industry can benefit by catering to the other half of the world population a bit better. Discussing and dispelling these cliches (such as the Damsel in distress which limits a woman’s chaacter to being a goal for the protagonist) would not only reduce their uses but also can lead to new and exciting ideas. Games can have better, more well-thought out stories and characters that would stick to our minds long after we have finished the game. Many wish that video games can be respected as the art form . Having a more mature, creative medium definitely will not hurt its chances of achieving this goal.
Now some fear that such discussion would paint the developers and the industry as purposely sexist. The point of these discussions isn’t to accuse but to enlighten people about the plot devices and stereotypes that should be known. Gaming won’t become a mature medium any time soon if we continue to use these negative tropes while denying that the gender gap exists in the first place.
Notes:
Much like my first essay, the difficulty was more about choosing what to say then how much I can say about it. Once I chose my focus on a certain opinion, I centered my writing on it. Wanting to tackle this particular topic personally certainly didn't hurt either.
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