Into the Looking Glass: Games, Women, Violence, and Society

[ultranos]

beanpot asked for an expansion of a discussion I had with her today about the gaming industry, women, violence, and ethics. As this is a topic near and dear to my heart, as well as somewhat close to an essay I've been meaning to write for approximately forever, you are about to witness a very lengthy essay on the topic. Look what happens when I don't have homework.



I am a female gamer. I grew up being a female gamer, which wasn't always easy even in 1990s-early 2000s Midwestern America. I have always been acutely aware that I had certain stereotypes leveled against me. That I would be no good at them. That I clearly didn't want to buy the game in my hand. Not only that, but I never had nearly the same sorts of representation in games that my brother did. That is, I didn't want to be limited to the demure white mage in my party. I didn't want only the scantily-clad fighters. (Although I learned to take great pleasure in stomping people into the ground with Chun-Li) There's a reason why my default icon is of Cecilia Adlhyde, spunky black and white mage princess from the original Wild ARMs, and why I honestly never really warmed to her contemporaries Aeris or Tifa fromFinal Fantasy VII.

According to the PAX East program guide, gamers are about 43% female. However, those demographics don't quite match up to the industry itself. I went to a panel with one of the lead writers and producers of Rock Band II and some of the Guitar Hero games before the property left Harmonix. She mentioned how often it felt like she was often the only woman in the room, and that the majority of women in the game industry still were in HR departments, not the technical staff. By and large, the gaming industry is still very much a "boy's club". In fact, it is often so much of a "boy's club" that women are often invisible or just playing within the system, and sometimes that's the better part of the deal. What's worse is to end up as even more of a sex-object, about on par with the "booth babes" that accompany companies at trade shows like the old E3. And, yes, PAX. Why else would my friends and I have been looking on in utter confusion at two attractive women dancing onstage at the Ubisoft booth and wondering what in god's name it had to do with Prince of Persia.

Speaking of Ubisoft, all of the above is made very clear in the case of Jade Raymond. Raymond was the lead producer in a quite awesome little game called Assassin's Creed. Raymond was pretty much the team leader on the project, and the team made a really good game. Raymond happens to be an attractive woman. When the game came out, Ubisoft let it be known that a rather attractive woman was the producer for the team that made the game.

Jade Raymond got dragged through the mud by some of the gaming community, being accused of "selling herself" instead of the game. [1] And got pornographic webcomics about her made. Nevermind that all she wanted was to talk about the game she helped make to the press, given that it's her job. [2]

It's attitudes like that that drove some of the founders of the game industry like Brenda Laurel to create the sadly now defunct company Purple Moon. Laurel entered the game industry back in the 1980s, when Atari was king, so she knows her way around. In her book Utopian Entrepreneur, she describes what supplied the impetus to create a company that focused on making good games for girls, ones that were every bit as fun and gameplay challenging as the ones for boys:

"Throughout my two decades in the computer game business, I had ached for a chance to create alternatives to the chasing, shooting, fighting, exploding, hyper-male world of games. Why weren't there any computer games for girls? And why did I end up losing my job every time I suggested it? It couldn't be just a sexist conspiracy. The boy's game business generated billions of dollars; surely even the most sexist in Silicon Valley would be perfectly happy to reap the corresponding billions form girls if he could figure out how to do it. Nor was the male culture of computer games simply an artifact of the history of the industry. Something more complex and subtle was going on, and I knew it had to do with the construction of gender embedded in every aspect of our lives -- in play, identity, work, technology, and business." [3]

Arguably, the game industry is a young one. It really only started 30 years ago, in the late 1970s-early 1980s, and is thus still in its growing pains. The fact that PAX East had a panel specifically on women and the video game industry is a sign that people are paying attention and trying to do better. Game developers are only just starting to look beyond themselves for ideas of who their market is. They look at themselves and think "what do I want to play". Therefore, for every heroine like Jill Valentine from Resident Evil or Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, we get, well, the cast of Dead or Alive.

Games are not being made in a vacuum. Laurel pointed that out, and the constructions that enter into our video games end up being fed back to us, reinforcing themselves in a seemingly-endless loop. Shouldn't, then, game developers have some sort of responsibility for the content of the games they produce? If games treat women simply as sex objects, why should one be surprised when players treat women as sex objects only, then? Bayonetta might play just like Dante from Devil May Cry, but Dante's clothes don't disappear when he does a huge attack combo. Is there something morally or ethically wrong about how an acceptable strategy in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is to gain back health by having sex with a prostitute, and then killing her to regain the money spent? Is there something wrong with games like the GTA series anyway, which puts the player on the wrong side of the law and expects them to play as a criminal to advance in the game?

And then there's the controversy surrounding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Released last year, the game generated controversy from various groups due to the content of the "No Russian" level (link here. Warning: extremely violent and disturbing content). In it, you play a CIA operative sent to infiltrate a Russian terrorist organization. You are told to get close to the leader, at any cost, in order to glean any information to prevent a war between the US and Russia. The terrorists decide to attack an airport full of civilians. You can choose to not shoot and just walk along following the terrorists doing the shooting. But you cannot shoot the actual "bad guys", they will kill you. You cannot save anyone. And in the end, the leader knows you are a mole and shoots you. And the body of a dead American in terrorist gear...sparks a war between the US and Russia.

Infinity Ward pulls no punches in the content. It's graphic and disturbing. The level is optional, but of course, media outlets latched onto it and yelled about playing terrorists. As Matt Turner, producer of Army of Two: 40th Day said, "it's designed to show the atrocities... it's pretty awful and if you fail to see that side of it than you're not getting the whole picture. That being said, I thought it took it a little far; it was pretty out there. But I like seeing that they have guts like that." [4] The script-writer Jesse Stern thinks that the risk was worth it, to see what the response was, to make it a great game. [5]

Stern works for TV and writes scripts for NCIS as well. But one difference between the level of violence in "No Russian" and TV and movies is that TV and movies rarely, if ever, actually show the level of violence shown in video games in general. "No Russian" just takes that to a different level. Not only that, but games are interactive, instead of passive. It's the interactivity that makes people so wary and uneasy about video game violence.

As Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios says, "We as an industry do have a moral responsibility...Anyone who does something for a mass market has a responsibility. You tread carefully on the lessons that you teach. That line that 'if a game is fun, it is okay'-that sounds trivial. If it is obvious this is an artificial world and you can't do these things in real life, then that is more acceptable. But if it parades itself as a real world, you have to be careful about that." [6]

This is different from the old argument of "distinguishing between fantasy and reality" that gets dragged up every time a minor with a gun comes around. I admit to my own biases on the subject, saying that argument drives me up the wall and is in fact obscuring the real issue by making game developers a scapegoat. Game developers cannot be held responsible for the actions of every person who has ever played their games. However, at the same time, with game designers trying to push the envelope more and more in the argument of making games as an acceptable form of legit media on the level of novels, television, and movies, there is a bit of responsibility there. If designers want to show something, be it the atrocities of war in Modern Warfare 2, or the craft of a story as in Heavy Rain, or a thousand other things, and have it be taken just as seriously as if the topic were addressed in a movie or novel, then they have to do it in a way that does not belittle the material.

Not every game is going to be like that, however. We can no more police games about violent or sexual content than we can police movies about grindhouse/slaughter or pornography. Or, to be more correct, police them more than movies. The United States has the ERSB, which has its problems mainly stemming from the fact that their ratings are not as familiar as the MPAA's and that they are not as enforced. But possibly the key issue with games as opposed to movies or TV is in their interactivity. There's a differences between watching the two brothers in Boondock Saints calmly execute people, and controlling Alex Mercer as he executes people by throwing them into buildings or slamming down helicopters in Prototype. While the latter is certainly more fantastical, the former has a certain distance that's maintained between the viewer and the action. And it's the presence of that distance, or lack thereof, which is at the crux of the issue of violence, misogyny, racism, and all other such things in games.

Amazingly, this is the same problem that faces us in society. In our real lives, we have no artificial distance that separates the action from the viewer. In that way, games are very much a reflection of our society and ourselves and how we perceive the world.

At PAX East, the representation of gamers was vast: genders, orientations, ages, races, and creeds all varied. The game industry may be young, but the people who operate within it, from developers to players, will take and internalize what they have played now. And the kids of today will be making the games of tomorrow, and will be drawing on their own experiences to do so. They will be the ones asking "what game would I want to play?"


[1]Jade Raymond is for Real. game girl advance. Retrieved on 03.30.2010.
[2]The Trouble with Jade. Feministe. Retrieved on 03.30.2010.
[3]Laurel, Brenda. Utopian Entrepreneur. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2001.
[4]Army of Two Producer Says Modern Warfare 2 Went Too Far. The Escapist. Retrieved on 03.30.2010.
[5]Modern Warfare 2 Writer Claims Controversy Was Worth the Risk. The Escapist. Retrieved on 03.30.2010.
[6]Ethics of Game Design. Gamasutra. Retrieved on 03.30.2010.

Comments

[beanpot.livejournal.com]

This is awesome and I learned a lot, so thank you!

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

[surreallis.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting. I found Brenda Laurel's words especially thoughtful. For two reasons.
1) I'm not sure a lot of the gaming companies/male creative teams really DO want to include women in their concerns. If only because there's sort of this 'oh shit, if women are around then we HAVE to think about what we're doing and be all PC' As if being fair and NOT objectifying women is being PC and a really big inconvenience. I don't know any developers, obviously, and I'm sure there are plenty who don't feel that way because there are games out there now that aren't horribly offensive. But it's still a vibe I get when I dabble.

I used to be really, really into gaming and read all the magazines, and it was pretty painfully obvious that the games weren't meant for me (unless they were also meant for very young children), nor was anything else in the business, but yeah, not the first or last thing that would make me feel that way. I coped. I didn't play online however. That was the one thing that I just couldn't get into. Not with all the harassing/insinuating/hitting on/deliberate killing/hur-hurring that went on if I identified my character in any way to be female. (ugh, I wish I'd known what guilds were at the time and had found some.) I played nearly all RPG's and had a fine time by myself. The Might and Magic series basically hijacked YEARS of my life.

I digress...

2) I wonder what she meant by games that women and girls would want to play? (And I don't mean that as a loaded question. I'm genuinely interested in what answers women and girls would give. Obviously not just one, but all the different possibilities.) My general feeling is that a decently-sized portion of female gamers WANT to play the same games as male gamers, just... you know, not be treated like either a plaything or the second coming of Christ.

Although I think the Sims and Second Life tend to be heavily female skewed, so there's obviously an appeal there. (I do play Sims, albeit with fannish characters, because it's hilarious.) And Guitar Hero as well. (I play.) Although I suppose there are guys too, who don't want to play shooting games.

Off-topic: Have you played Mass Effect (or 2)? How did you like it? I'm sort of lazily considering it.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

1) Funny you should mention that. The person from Harmonix I talked with, and I'm blanking on her name, said that, as the only woman on the team at times, it sort of ended up being her job to make sure representations in games like Guitar Hero were not just white, heterosexual male. But she said that really it's that a lot of her colleagues are, well, young male CS geeks, which is not a demographic of the population well-noted for paying attention to things.

And yes, I am very much aware of sometimes gaming "not being for me". I didn't play online, but when I ventured into gaming forums, I always remember being assumed to be male. I remember when I casually mentioned it after a few years on a particular board, the reaction was "wait, you're a girl?!" Not to mention that playing in arcades was always an exercise in patience and hilarity.

2) It's a tough question, really. I know I want to play the same games my male friends do. What I think part of what she means is that she doesn't think women and girls want to play games that have been specifically "designed" for them, things that sacrifice gameplay for pink and treat the player like an idiot child. An example Laurel gives was a game that turned from a normal shooter to one where the projectiles were marshmallows since women "didn't like violence" and "needed slower targets".

Beyond that, there is research that shows that females tend to favor games with puzzles and story over shooting things or "twitch" games. Which basically ends up saying make those type of games without falling into stereotypes or objectifying women, which is really all it takes at this point to make some things more "female-friendly".

Off-topic: Yeah, I've played Mass Effect. It's good. It's got an interesting blend of RPG and shooter. The only complaint I really have is that Shepard runs too slow. :) I've heard ME2 is even better, but haven't stolen my housemate's copy yet.

[havocthecat]

My general feeling is that a decently-sized portion of female gamers WANT to play the same games as male gamers, just... you know, not be treated like either a plaything or the second coming of Christ.

I just want to not have to carefully select my games in order to avoid (as much as possible, anyway) sexism, racism, and all the other isms out there. Is that so much to ask? I mean, the answer is apparently "yes," but it shouldn't be.

Also, I'd love to avoid the nigh-unavoidable gratuitous T&A. WTF MIDRIFF BARING CLEAVAGE ARMOR NO. It's kind of sad how I have to have a discussion with the kidlet about how cleavage-baring armor is unrealistic and no actual woman warrior would wear that unless she wanted to be killed really fast.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Is that so much to ask? I mean, the answer is apparently "yes," but it shouldn't be.

It really shouldn't be. There ARE developers out there who are trying. And it's just like every thing else out there dealing with this stuff. Sometimes they fail. And some of them pick themselves up, and fail better next time.

Oh god, the gratuitous T&A drives me up the damn wall. I should not be slightly embarrassed to play a game. But it's so, so nice when games DO get female armor right. And slightly bizarre when they manage to do both in the same game. (Valkyrie Profile, I'm looking at you. You have Jayle in actual full-plate, and yet others in...not. *facepalm* SO CLOSE, TRI-ACE. SO DAMN CLOSE!)

[havocthecat]

CHUN-LI. I love Chun-Li. But do you know how much flak I'd take for playing her? (Not to mention Kitana and Mileena in Mortal Kombat II, and Sonya Blade in MKI.) Apparently it was dumb that I was always playing the girl. WTF? IT IS NOT LAME AND ALSO I AM A GIRL, YOU NITWIT.

(This is my brother and my cousin who always made fun of me, so I could call them small-minded morons and try to hit them get away with it. Keep in mind that this was also *mumble* years a go.)

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you take about as much flak for playing Chun-Li as I take for sometimes playing Seung Mina or Talim in Soul Calibur. This is roughly about the point where I beat them into the ground with the character. Reason being? I like fast fighters. Most female characters in fighting games are the lightning bruisers: don't hit as hard, but hit fast and move fast. So I end up playing most of the female characters and some of the lightweight males. But in an unfamiliar fighting game, I'll go with the female because that's the safest bet for my playstyle.

(I have told you the story of how I was hanging out at an arcade, on crutches, and playing Soul Calibur, yes? I was playing Seung Mina, and two random guys come up to me. One leans against the side of the cabinet, and asks if he can play. I shrug and say "sure", shuffling over.

We get to the character select screen for two player. I keep my current character, he picks...some guy I can't remember. He's kinda cocky about this. Match starts. Less than 60 seconds later, he's lost 2 rounds. I wish I'd had a camera for his face. His friend's trying not to laugh, and he challenges me. I shrug, say "sure", and basically the entire thing repeats.

The two guys suddenly have pressing matters elsewhere, leaving me alone at the machine. One of my friends comes up, because she's apparently been watching this entire thing from the side the whole time.

"Did you, a girl, just beat them, using a female fighter, while on crutches?"
"Yes."
"You are scary.")

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I always play the girl. I find it much more satisfying when I pummel them to the ground as a female :D

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Very well stated and I couldn't agree with you more. As a girl gamer myself with a brother who is bugger into games than I am, I see a lot of these dynamics in play, just like you do. Thanks for sharing and thanks to aurora_novarum for sending me here.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

The differences between how people reacted to me and my brother were a lot more telling when we were younger. I came to gaming earlier than he did, and I'm still a gamer while he's wandered away from it. Yet, he could easily ask for games for birthdays or Christmas and get them, and for me, it was more of a guarantee to get it if I just worked for the money and bought it myself. My brother, bless him, shared the consoles and games. But it was kind of irritating to get hand-me-downs from my little sibling.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I find that interesting. While the gender thing was always an issue - more acceptable for my younger bro to be into games than me - it wasn't a huge deal overall in my house. My brother and I were usually expected to share games and when they were gifts, it was for both of us.

And my mom liked games so... ;)

I found the gender bias more as I got older. Maybe not within my family specifically, but watching the industry. I'm not a big gamer, but my brother is, so I have a lot of exposure to the industry, considering he has some contacts within it and he's trying to break into it as a career. It's amazing how much of it still has boy's club mentality to it.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Well, my immediate family didn't care. I think my parents just accepted the fact that I was a slightly odd child. :) But they never really understood games, although they gamely tried it when my brother and I cajoled them into trying them every once in a blue moon.

The gender balance is an odd thing for me. I see things about the industry, and have some friends in it, and it's very male-dominated. But where I am, now, no one bats an eye when I walk into a game store. Unlike back at home where I sometimes garner odd looks, especially after I start talking about the differences in XBox controllers (I think the guy expected me to be buying something for a non-existent boyfriend?). Maybe the demographics here are just a bit more diverse. I don't know.

Oh god, I wish I could remember the name of the person from Harmonix I heard speak on all this, because she had some FANTASTIC points.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

btw, is that a Lightning icon?

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Yes it is. :)