1) You're inadvertently treating "male" as the default. It's not about a game "benefiting from having women", it's that it doesn't benefit from not having women.Don't you realize that? The point isn't to add women to meet a "quota". It's to treat women as people. And 50% of people just so happen to be women. Women inherently bring with them different experiences, different opportunities, and different inspiration for creativity. And not just as love interests for men.
Thats true, women are people and do have different experiences. Meaning that when implemented into games then you're bound to have a different experience. Thats obviously true. I'm just saying that if the creators don't want to add female characters, they shouldn't feel bad about that. Sarkesian is suggesting that more female characters should be added. I'm saying that if game creators want to then they should go right ahead, but only if they really want to. Forced inclusion seems like the wrong way to handle things.
A really, REALLY easy way to eliminate sexism in some small way is to just give random roles in TV, film, books, games, etc. to a female. Make an NPC female knight in a fantasy game along with the usual male knights. Make a female warrior, make a male cleric. These "small roles" that shouldn't have to really matter but can change perception in even small ways (
what's an ocean but many drops?) Don't think of it as a gender thing, especially in fiction, it doesn't HAVE to follow real life patterns and it'd be easy enough to implement. It doesn't have to mean a game is completely recreated because a few girls were added. Fang in FF13 was originally supposed to be a guy. That turned out fine. Females don't necesarily have to be different from men. I doubt lines of dialogue would (nor should) be added so she can talk about hair and makeup (the same way we don't see guys in games talking about sports and cars).
Men and women can save the world, men and women can be vulnerable and afraid, men and women can also play games.
2) Men with bulging muscles are power fantasies for men, not men as sex objects for women. It's not like you'll find women attracted to most of the bulky men in Gears of War and such. Women in lingerie is just treating women as sex objects for men, not power fantasies for women. That's the difference.
You can't say that for sure. Just like how you can't say that running around in lingerie isn't a power fantasy for some women. People have different perspectives on this stuff. There is no way to say for sure either way.
True. Personally, I like a handsome face and a nice smile. But this is sort of the inherent problem about sexual perceptions is that they aren't the same for men and women and men are much more easily pandered too, often in a degrading and unrealistic way for women.
Maybe if the vampires from twilight were in most games you'd have a point, but that's not the types of male representation you're referring to here.
The intent is irrelevant. Power fantasy or Sex object, its still exploiting physical characteristics for some intended purpose. You can't criticize one without criticizing the other. Both are totally fine if you ask me, but its not like there is a big difference in how these things play out.
I think the point is that various sizes of people exist. Men don't HAVE to have 200 lbs of muscle to be deemed handsome (I doubt anyone will poorly review a game because its lead guy didn't have abs if the game itself is good); nor do women need to have giant breasts and tiny waists. Small breasts exist, girls with larger bums exist. The point is, there IS wiggle room here, for both the boys and the girls, and I doubt the merit and score of a game is lost because the character is not Sports Illustrated versions of "fit" and
perfect.
The Suikoden mermaids having some very generous thigh proportions and a tiny chest, and I actually like that (having a similar tiny chest and larger thighs):
THe suikoden series in general having a TON of unique characters to create also feature amazing variations of body types. Fat, short, small, skinny, thick, muscular, duck person, etc.
5) She's talked about this too. But women of color are by far the most marginalized, and hence are most deserving of getting their fair shake at representation.
Agreed.
8) Why not? Because that's all that most creators ever do! It's a trope, and it's fucking boring. Developers should stop doing this because it's utterly boring, predictable, and ends up being stupid, childish, and usually pretty offensive too. By not doing so, they instantly open up room for more creative characters and more differentiation from their competition.
That holds true for most of the things you say should be "up to the creators". Of course it should be up to the creators! She's not saying it shouldn't! The entire problem is that the majority of creators are being boring and doing the same things with women, so if they explore alternatives, they instantly give themselves an advantage over their competition in terms of representation, creativity, potential, and even audience.
I agree that games should try to differentiate themselves from others to avoid being stale and boring but really? Sexualized female enemies? Thats boring? I can't even tell you the last game I played with sexualized female enemies. Maybe as a boss fight or a villain or something, but as far as standard enemies go... I can't think of anything. I'm not saying it should become standard or anything but I don't agree that its been done to death.
Dude...you have a persona avatar. If you play JRPGs, there is a minimum of one sexualized female enemy per game. I don't even know how you can pretend this isn't a thing.
Minority representation would definitely be better appreciated. I can't be the only bleeding-heart white girl who feels weird when most shows barely fit a ethnic minority in other than the token one.
More importantly, if you want games to be taken more seriously as an art form (as you directly state), you should actually understand gaming's limitations currently inhibiting its growth as such. Gaming's tendency toward boring tropes is not helping things.
I honestly couldn't care less if they're taken more seriously as an art form or not. It would be nice, but I can't bring myself to care if the general public doesn't except them as art, they are. Boring tropes do suck though. I'm not going to disagree with that, but imo gaming's limitations have far less to do with boring tropes than they do with lazy/rushed developers releasing broken games, lack of focus on gameplay and the general content with mediocrity.As far as boring tropes go, they're certainly a factor in gaming's limitations, but they aren't the number one problem. At least as far as I'm concerned they aren't.
To some it matters. If you're half-hearted about the issue, why bother this long passage at all. It matters to me because I've been a gamer my whole life and yet I have to fight on the internet (blagh) for women to be better represented because there's only so many I feel I can relate to, or (even MORE rarely) play as.