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Anita Sarkeesian: "No more excuses for the lack of women at E3".

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

E3 2015, some declared, was the year of the woman. The return of Tomb Raider and Mirror's Edge was complemented by the debut of new female-led IPs like Horizon: Zero Dawn and ReCore. The diversity of gaming protagonists seemed to be improving.

Anita Sarkeesian was not so sure.

"Studies show that if 15% of background characters are female, you think it's 50/50 -- our brains just add that in," she says. "I thought that's what was happening -- we have such a lack of female protagonists that these felt like a bigger deal than these actually were. So, being the Debbie Downer that I am, I was like, 'Let's just count'."

And count she did. The first of Feminist Frequency's gender breakdowns for E3 showed that female characters only made up 9% of all announcements at the 2015 event. Males made up 32%. It was not the year of the woman.

Since then, Sarkeesian and her team have done the same analysis every year and -- with the exception of 2016 -- games with exclusively female protagonists have only ever accounted for 7% to 9% of announcements.

In 2016 -- "a very dark moment for the industry" -- there were only two female-led games: Horizon and ReCore, again. E3 2016 had no new female protagonists.

Sarkeesian acknowledges the limits of her analysis; it focuses on games at the major press conferences, and separates titles where you can design or choose from multiple characters. But she maintains this study can be a useful look at wider trends.

"E3 is the annual state of the industry," she says. "This is where studios and publishers decide what's worth showing and sharing. So while [our study] doesn't take into account every game released in a year, it shows what the industry thinks is most important."

Check the link for more.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
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SonGoku

Member
wtf wasn't she supposed to leave gaming to focus on movies or sum shit?
Guess that 150k check is running out
 

Zenaku

Member
I love female characters, and always choose them when there's a choice, unless there are gender restricted romance options. But...

Demanding 50/50 character representation when player representation is nowhere near 50/50 is just ignorant. I wish it was near half, it'd make it easier to find a game-loving girlfriend, but that's not reality; not that the modern LGBTQ++ ultra-progressive movement give a damn about reality.
 

DiscoJer

Member
The thing is, E3 only represents part of the industry.

What if you did this at Casual Connect? That's a game conference for casual games, whose main audience is women
 

Geki-D

Banned
Wasn't it proven she blatantly lied about one E3 (surprised surprise)? Someone else counted including games where you could select your gender and it came to way higher. Wish I could find the link.

Anyway, no one cares about her opinion. Devs should be able to do what they want. More women, fine. Less, okay.
 

Orenji Neko

Member
Uh oh, E3 is approaching and people are excited about games. Elsewhere, the Feminist Frequency headquarters are abuzz with activity as their alarms go off. Commissioners Peta, Vox, Polygon, and Kotaku are calling on the red...no...pink phone. Anita's butler (a ballbagless Yorkshire terrier that talks) informs her of the situation. Only moments later, the usual suspects who make up the "Cry Foul Injustice League" have piled into a patreon funded SUV, and are speeding on their way to bring it all down!

"Where is Gamergate? Where is E3? What ....are video games anyway?"
"I don't know....I swear!"
"Swear it to me!!! Hisssssss!"
 
How about you let developers make the games they want to make instead of meeting some stupid quota.

Edit: I remember the Star Wars Fallen Order reveal and people bitching the protagonist looks "generic" because its another white male. Like that is a real actor they modeled that protagonist against. How you think it makes him feel to see people bitching and calling him generic, but these people don't care.
 
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