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[CornBurrito]

They don't, unless they are told to notice it. Simple as that.

I've got twins, a boy and a girl. There's always been a selection of girl and boy focused toys in my house, they both play with whatever their imagination wants them to with very little thought for anything else.

I can see as a parent of a singleton that you may feel slighted against your child, but the suggestion that a girl should expect to play as a girl actually goes against the concept of gender equality.

You have both boys and girls toys. Yet you draw the conclusion that girls don't care at all about representation. Unless you don't have any female dolls/figures in that toy collection how do you know your daughter wouldn't care about their abscence?

And nobody is saying a girl should only play with girl toys or play as female characters. I think the argument is that the option should exist. Which even your post seems to agree with.

 

[Ushojax]

That was team ninja. The studio behind such gems as doa extreme.

Nintendo licensing out Metroid to those people however deserves criticism.

Yoshio Sakamoto directed the game and Nintendo had complete control of the project, it was a Nintendo game.

 

[Diablos]

Okay. I understand what you're all saying here.

Yes, we can multitask. We can prioritize. My concern is that in a time where anything remotely progressive let alone sensible is going to be under constant assault, you can only focus on so much. If the leader of the free world is a rational person for example you could plea for focusing on lots of sensible things. That becomes harder next year. Much harder.

And really I don't see Run as being that sexist of a game when you can also play as a female. Maybe Nintendo can address concerns by patching the game and having two playable chars from the start, Mario and Toadette for example.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Okay. I understand what you're all saying here.

Yes, we can multitask. We can prioritize. My concern is that in a time where anything remotely progressive let alone sensible is going to be under constant assault, you can only focus on so much. If the leader of the free world is a rational person for example you could plea for focusing on lots of sensible things. That becomes harder next year. Much harder.

And really I don't see Run as being that sexist of a game when you can also play as a female. Maybe Nintendo can address concerns by patching the game and having two playable chars from the start, Mario and Toadette for example.

Please don't start using yeah but Trump to shut down every conversation you think isn't worth your time...

 

[Riposte]

But it's just tradition! lol

Nintendo needs to update their games socially, even Pokemon has done it. The only time their female characters seem to shine are in off shoot mini game collection or sports games.

Yeah, by Jan 20th, they should release a patch where you can grope Princess Peach - you know, in order to keep up with society.

 

[Kinyou]

It seems like this is something where classic game design with unlockable characters just clashes with the new perspectives.

I think it's shitty when mobile games hide the female character behind a paywall, but if you simply have to play the game for a bit to unlock peach it doesn't seem like a big problem to me.
Also not like Mario is just a player avatar. I don't think many people look for identification in him.

 

[DopeToast]

The New York Times actually published this? Maybe the premise of every Mario game is outdated then, but who is even considering the premise when playing the game and yearning to save the princess. The goal is to get to the end. Maybe they just get rid of the princess rescuing idea altogether if it would make people happy.

 

[RenditMan]

You have both boys and girls toys. Yet you draw the conclusion that girls don't care at all about representation. Unless you don't have any female dolls/figures in that toy collection how do you know your daughter wouldn't care about their abscence?

And nobody is saying a girl should only play with girl toys or play as female characters. I think the argument is that the option should exist. Which even your post seems to agree with.

Should the Harry Potter films have offered a female protagonist? What about Frozen, maybe a male option?

Your average kid is able to deal with these kinds of stories without thinking about sexist things.

It really is very simple. The hero of the Mario story is male with everything that entails. There's other stories with female heros.

 

[chaobreaker]

Girls do care about representation.

This one girl petitioned the developers of the mobile game Temple Run to not put a female character behind a paywall and they agreed.

She even got an op-ed published by the Washington Post about female representation.

No one would be debating if the premise of the Mario platformers aren't inherently sexist if Peach or any other female characters were available to play on most of them. It wasn't too long ago that we had directors behind the New Super Mario games handwaving adding Peach to the games because of bullshit reasons like her dress. It took nearly three decades for Nintendo to let her and another female character (Rosalina) be playable side-by-side with Mario and Luigi in SM3DW. And now they have her and Toadette not being available at Mario Run at the start.

My point is that there's a minimum to be reached and Nintendo rarely reaches it with the Mario games.

 

[CornBurrito]

Should the Harry Potter films have offered a female protagonist? What about Frozen, maybe a male option?

Your average kid is able to deal with these kinds of stories without thinking about sexist things.

It really is very simple.

I'm not saying that.

I am saying you can't conclude girls don't care about representation just because they don't limit themselves purely to those things.

It's like thinking someone doesn't care about the option to get vanilla ice cream just because they often get chocolate.

You also said people don't care until told to by an adult to care but you've provided no credible evidence and even your own anecdote is flawed because by your own admission you've still provided your daughter with female options.

 

[mre]

Keep pretending little girls don't notice a lack of representation if you want...

Where did I say that? I just pointed out that the "example" we had in this thread was a projection on the part of the parent.

 

[MrBadger]

Okay. I understand what you're all saying here.

Yes, we can multitask. We can prioritize. My concern is that in a time where anything remotely progressive let alone sensible is going to be under constant assault, you can only focus on so much. If the leader of the free world is a rational person for example you could plea for focusing on lots of sensible things. That becomes harder next year. Much harder.

And really I don't see Run as being that sexist of a game when you can also play as a female. Maybe Nintendo can address concerns by patching the game and having two playable chars from the start, Mario and Toadette for example.

I'm kinda confused by this...because a fascist is in charge of America, we should focus less on social issues? I for one don't see why I should express my opinions less because of the current political climate. You overestimate how much energy it takes to question whether a videogame trope from the 80's should be as accepted now as it was then.

I think this is a discussion worth having because this is the first time that Mario has ever been readily available outside of the Nintendo bubble.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

we already had a huge thread on this over on gaming side