Video Games and the Female Audience
**We’ve moved to The Escapist! New episodes weekly!** www.escapistmagazine.com Episode Six in my series of video “lectures,” with special guest star: Gamasutra’s Leigh Alexander! Enjoy the new title and credits! I can be reached at floydo_animation at yahoo dot com. Leigh can be reached at leighalexander1 at gmail dot com. Read more by Leigh at: sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com Like the intro/outro music? Download the full tracks here! Penguin Cap www.carbohydrom.net Test Dummy ocremix.org
Video Rating: 4 / 5
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7:19
@Shezmu sexualizing periods?
@RaymondoPerson – Of course, sexualization period is bad, m’kay?
02:50 Best point in this video.
my best friend got me into world of warcraft!
@CidRunsFunny These are also the games I as a male player find myself most drawn to. I only got my PS3 2 months ago, and what were the first games I ran out and bough? Fall Out 3, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origin, Enslaved and Mirrors Edge. I actually think that the not only is the hyper sexualisation of women in games as keeping women out, but I also think its keeping a lot of men out.
@RaymondoPerson There actually was a ‘pin-up’ of Dante. Way back when Playstation Magazine (PSM) had an annual ’swimsuit’ spread every june or july and beyond the obvious 10 pics of artists rendering the gamer goddess in question they did a Dante (google Dante PSM image, you’ll find it). Relevant to Devil may Cry? Hardly. Fan service? Arguably. But the fact was it didn’t hurt Dante’s rep by or for the 3rd game because it can’t. The wallpaper of Dante surfing to most people is just a normal pic.
Women are inferior.
I also would like to contribute that I think part of the problem, in my eyes, is that it is thought that while a guy can be bad at a video game but still be dedicated to it, if a woman is she “just doesn’t spend enough time on it”
Honestly, some people, men and women alike, just don’t have the hand-eye coordination to be good at video games. But they can still be fans of them They just have to work a little harder to get plot points or rewards.
Sincerely, a skill-lacking game fan
Haha! This was great!
While I agree, I think that girls also have to be more open-minded. I’m a girl who greatly enjoys Halo, CoD, DoTA, etc, and whenever I mention a game or share a gaming experience with some other female friend, it is always met with snorts of derision and the statement “stop wasting your time”.
It’s really annoying, and I don’t think it’s completely the gaming industry’s fault that girl’s aren’t interested.
Video games should be like Oblivion and have characters like Antoinette, who aren’t made to be sexy, but to playa part.
@RaymondoPerson ..I commented on this months ago, how did you even find my comment. I don’t even remember what I said..so…sure..I guess I’m a stuck-up elitist..
@RoseRuby him calling you an idiot was unwarranted but he’s right in disagreeing. you’re basically perpetrating a terrible stereotype about PC gamers being stuck-up elitists.
as someone who enjoys both PC and console games, I loathe that attitude. it’s true that most console gamers play pretty casual games, but it’s also true for PCs these days with Facebook games, Bejeweled and whatnot. this attitude isn’t even a recent development, as some ‘hardcore’ PC gamers even rallied against the *NES*.
@iAmCrosh the difference is that commonly in society male sexiness is different from female sexiness and the female type is (imo unfairly) viewed as demeaning and not worthy of respect, a view that even the creator of this video is a bit guilty of (sexy pin-ups = respect lost)
also, if a male tries to come across as attractive in the same way that females do, everyone (even some gay guys who try hard not to be stereotyped) will scream “fucking faggot”. just look at sexualized FF male designs.
@CidRunsFunny the thing about Samus is that she wears a suit throughout the game… but if you play well enough you’ll get to see her in a bikini at the end. I realized this was an attempt at fanservice when I played my first Metroid game (I was maybe… 11) and when I later found out that she is viewed as a feminist gaming icon I was pretty much dumbstruck. the fact that this is the best example we have of a non-sexualized female is pretty revealing.
I disagree with the “never have pin-up art of girl characters or else they will stop looking strong” thing. imagine if a pretty male character like, say, Dante from Devil May Cry was featured in a sexualized pin-up designed for a female audience (and trust me DMC has quite a few female fans in Japan) – would that *really* tarnish your idea of the character?
what I’m saying is, yeah, there’s too many of them and it’s bad that it’s so common with girl characters. but in *small doses* it’s fine.
I think this was spot on. As a “hardcore” girl gamer I feel like the biggest problem is that there has been a cultural distinction that games aren’t for us, and it’s weird for us to play them. Even if you shake it off and start playing, this ideal gets reinforced in the actual game if other players find out you’re a girl. I just say I’m a dude now if asked in games because too many people either turn into sexists or creepers. You really begin to feel like a minority that shouldn’t be there.
WAIT! wait wait wait! sims isn’t only for girls its fun
“We’re smart enough to see the lack of authenticity behind it.”
Tell that to those who subscribe and follow iJustine’s atrocious let’s play channel. Do I have to point out the Portal 2 lets play? Telling every form of dialogue to shut up, talking over instructions and important dialogue, unable to grasp basic concepts, knows absolutely nothing about the game, but dives into the sequel anyway, it’s pretty damn bad.
It is not weird in the slightest of what gender you are to what gender your avatar is in the game world.
For example, most of my characters in WoW are female despite myself being male, it’s down to personal preference (and in the case of my gnome, hilarity). I dislike the male blood elf avatars so use the female one for my Horde pally. Same goes for the opposite sex.
A big problem with the people playing games if their reaction to girls, especailly on Xbox, is to hit on them…
I know a couple of girls who play LoL and WoW and I’ve gotta say the amount of people that start wanting to talk to them the second they find out there girls is just a bit weird. I’m hoping that sometime in the near future people wont care about the gender of the person playing it doesn’t effect anything in game so why does it matter?
Side note, male or female it doesn’t matter what avatar you pick regardless of you gender once again it doesn’t matter.
@Metrokiller555 So it’s sad for a male person to create a female character while it’s OK for a female to use a male person?
I also think we should start putting more female avatars in games, like rainbow six vegas 2, in that game your could create your own character(male and FEMALE) which was really nice except that a bunch of weird males started useing them for themselves which quite frankly is kinda…………freaky. but i think you guys and girls get my point.
This is really informative, i to feel that girls shouldnt be excluded from gaming. My girlfriend kickass major ass at black ops, reach, medal of honor, bad company 2, and about 30 more! She is the loe off my fucking life!!!!!!!
@paydafee Boys (< 14) do often have that mentality, and some sexist men too – neckbeards are people too, you know. Especially if some men do remain immature stereotypical gamers, there’s a possibility they’ll still have a childish boys vs. girls mentality.
best ghostbusters ever
OMG that marshmallow man doll makes me want to cry. I had one and it was my favorite toy ever and one day my parents just threw it away. T_T
I guess Vince Clortho and Gozer had poor credit scores, so the mortgage for the building had to go in Zuul’s name.
Best Prank call ever! XD
thumbs up if u played the new ghostbusters game
If you’ve seen the Ghostbusters movie you’ll realise that Dana’s apartment is on he 22nd floor. I guess they were trying to be too accurate to the film.
GWOSHFBUPHERS !!!…. * takes game out and pours pepsi on it… then pisses on it and throws out the window * that game was a fucking rip off of my money
@SaltySangster i started watching him when bart vs the space mutants was last video he made
@1993klittens Notice that Ghost Busters logo is facing the wrong direction too?
What a junky video game. At least it’s better than E.T.!
what would happen if you actually bought the sound generator thing? Would that have helped? Probably not, huh?
He could have gone into the old arcade version?
THIS CHICK IS TOAST!
@TheChicagoguy the game trailers video viewer whatever its called is a piece of shit
@Orcdudez Yea I know you suck
You have completed a great game.
@Trollgamingnews i did
Activision even fucked ghostbusters up
Who else noticed Activision on the cartridge?
2:47 Sounds like Billy Mays screaming at the top of his lungs.
Game:Press start!
Game:GHREEUST BASSTERS!!!111!!!!
Me:*throws beer at the NES*
James: Get that the fuck outta here!
*throws it back into his pile of toys*
wut?
@ShaDHP23
If you’ve ever played this game, you know that there are no jokes in this review after 2:15 The NES Ghostbusters game is a boring, shitty mess that virtually unbeatable due to 22 flights of stairs and 4 pissed off ghosts. Development of this game was screwy too. It went from nothing to finished in all of six weeks, not unlike ET.
This game has no dick.
Usually he tries to be funny with his AVGN reviews, but here, I think he’s actually being serious. I think he’s funny as piss with this review!
@Excaliber237 ummmmmmm, angry joe came after avgn….. and avgn is so much angrier
AVGN is so intertaining that I always forget these videos are actually reviews.
First AVGN video i watched on gametrailers