Working Title 08.16.10: Working Rant - The X X Factor
Posted by Jordan Williams on 08.16.2010
After a column about Activision being against female leads surfaced, the argument on whether female leads can sell games has kicked up again. But in the end does it really matter if a lead in a game is male or female or do we have bigger fish to fry?
Welcome to the #1 Column to think that BioShock Infinite COULD be great, but might be a disaster...WORKING TITLE! Of course we haven't seen SHIT about it yet but I don't know...having a city in the sky versus underwater just seems like there are just so many other things that can go wrong with the design and what not. But I guess that is something we will just have to look up later.
But other than that? Nothing of note has been going on in the world of gaming outside of QuakeCon which has done nothing but make the boner I have for RAGE even larger. But about two weeks ago there were some waves in the gaming world over everyone's favorite enemy Activision.
Over at Gamasutra Leigh Alexander wrote a piece about how former Activision Employees have revealed that Activision has used Focus Testing to sometimes oust female leads from games under the assumption that female leads don't sell.
Of course the entire internet's vagina exploded.
Many people have chimed in on their two cents about the subject ranging from the evils of focus testing to the question of if female leads CAN sell in game. But I will take a somewhat different look.
It's obvious that female video game leads have sold, but is that really because they are female or because the game they were in was great on its own?
To put it bluntly...does it really matter if we have female leads or not To find this out I will look at the two subjects that seem to come up with females in games and find out what the hell is just going on with this argument and if it is something that still needs to be argued.
Working Title: The X X-Factor
Side 1: The Game makes The Girl
Female leads in games. There is a clamoring for them as much as any other new thing in games. But the idea sometimes that more games NEED female leads versus games just need better leads in general is something I see a lot. Is it really the female lead that has made some of the more successful female led games sell or is it the fact that they are just in a good game to begin with?
When you look in the female gaming hall of fame you will no doubt see three names repeatedly pop up over and over in discussion about female video game leads and what they have brought to the table.
Samus Aran, Lara Croft, and Chun-Li.
These three have been hailed as three of the most revolutionary female leads in video game history. For Samus she burst onto the scene when the role of the female was STRICTLY the damsel in distress. But even though she has become one of the more successful female leads in gaming history there is still a bit of a downside to her seeing as she had to pretty much masquerade as a male-dominant cyborg just to drive home the female fact. (I'll get more into that later). Moving along from Samus you have Chun-Li. A lot of people call her the first lady of fighting because she was one of (if not THE) first fighting game characters EVER and he role was never solely about her being a woman...she kicked ass with the best of them...she just HAPPENED to be a woman. And of course the most recent and probably the most mainstream example of this is Lara Croft. She was seen to many as the first female lead to his mainstream and crossover success in the video game world and beyond. She was on the cover of magazines, had movies and toys based off of her, and was pretty much the digital representation of the girl power movement of the 90s, and she was a GIRL. Where Samus had to (and still does) hide behind an androgynous suit and silence (until Other M, anyway) and Chun-Li even had to be fan-serviced down the road to give her a bit of a softer and feminine edge and with Lara Croft it was never a question that she was a girl's girl. She raided tombs in daisy dukes and a tight tank top and had the model figure everyone was looking for.
But did that really matter since all of the games they were in were exceptionally good at the time? If Metroid, Street Fighter, and Tomb Raider featured male leads (or in Chun-Li's case, an all male cast) would they have been any better or worse?
No. It would not have.
That is not to say that female leads in games are useless or they do not have their place, but we have seen time and time again when it comes to the truly GREAT games out there with female leads...it was because the GAME was great.
As a whole lead characters in videogames, male or female, tend to be underwritten, typecast, and just plain boring. Why is this? More often than not they are simply vessels for us, the player, to connect to the game world. When looking at the Female vs. Male Argument does it REALLY seem like male characters are super characterized and fleshed out a majority of the time?
Hell fucking no.
You have Generic Space Marine, Ass-Kicker McBadass, and Mr. Action Hero Superspy. Three of the most generic and general heroic video game leads we get beaten over the head with every single year in every single game.
It's the same thing every time.
With Space Marine you have someone who is trying to save the galaxy by blowing half of it up. They will want peace by blowing the alien scum away to save their planet and the people they care about.
Ass-Kicker McBadass is exactly what it says on the tin, they are out to prove they are the very best at what they do...which is checking someone's temperature with a foot-sized thermometer. There might be a revenge plot or something thrown in there for good measure...but it's really just an excuse to kick some ass.
Then you have Action Hero SuperSpy. While they might not always be an Action Hero or a SuperSpy...they still revolve around adventure. Shooting guns, blowing shit up, snapping next, displaying tons of charisma and acrobatics can get them from the beginning and the end of the game in a blockbuster thrill ride of epic proportions. As long as you keep them full of ammo and wit for those tricky puzzles they will be fine.
So breaking them down to the base levels like that really doesn't do anything does it? It's not supposed to. We play the games for that sort of escapist idea like that. We play games like that because that's the story we want to see. That's what we want to go through, that's what we are craving.
So what does the gender of the character have to do with it? From this side of the argument...nothing. In fact...I pretty with those three examples I pretty much summed up Samus, Chun-Li, and Lara Croft. Three of the biggest female leads of all time...and the only thing that separates them from the faceless generic schlock of male leads is the fact they have a vagina and that's the first thing everyone notices. But you know what they will notice once the realization of playing as a female subsides? They if the game stands up to its merits and are a good game then it's the game that makes the female lead worth it in the end. A shitty game with a great female lead is a still a shitty game at the end of the day.
Case in point.
But then again...am I looking at this wrong or is it one of those situations where it's the females that make the game worth it? You know...a sort of "come for the pie, stay for the conversation" type deal?
Side 2: The Girl makes The Game
Let's just get this shit out in the open. No matter how many gamer girls and girl gamers (there IS a difference) are out there, this is still a pretty male oriented and dominated thing. Therefore the vast majority of games are made to appeal and target the key male demographic that pretty much any form of media. So what do you usually have to do to get males 18-24 to pay attention?
Well there are guns...and cars...and sweet glorious titties.
Did that sound really immature? It's because it's meant to be. The industry as a whole is still very fucking immature so they cater to the lowest common denominator a lot. For every artsy fartsy game like Shadow of the Colossus you have SPEHS MARINE COMBAT. They all tend to blur together and look exactly the same after awhile...so how do you change that? How do you get people to notice YOUR game?
In the words of one of the greatest poets of our generation, Soulja Boy Tell'Em
Throw some D's on em
The female lead can sometimes mean the difference between a game standing out from the pack or falling into obscurity. Look at a game like Dead or Alive, it was a 3D fighter in an era where Tekken, Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter were kicking the shit out of everyone. But somehow it had to get attention...and how did it do that? Tons of scantily clad women and technological advancements in jiggle physics, of course.
What everyone saw on the surface was just a game full of busty female characters with 20+ costumes that would fight a lot...but anyone who actually took the time to play the game would actually see that there was a decent fighting game there to be played. It had good A.I, it had a good counter and combo system and it actually had a story...well...sort of. That point isn't even limited to DOA...this can even be applied to the powerful Lara Croft.
In the same vein that it probably would not have mattered if Tomb Raider had a male lead can we honestly say that Tomb Raider would've seen the wild runaway success it had if not for Lara Croft crossing over into pretty much all forms of media? Before Lara Croft how many times did you see a VIDEO GAME character regarded as a celebrity by the older-than-13 audience? She holds TWO Guinness World Records and was on the cover of TIME AND NEWSWEEK WAAAAAAAY before the current generation when gaming was seen as socially acceptable.
Now if she had been Logan Croft and the TR series was just as good would ANY of that had happened? Better yet would anyone have even played those games in the first place?
I really don't know if we would've. Was Tomb Raider a good enough game to stand up on its own without the push in popularity that was given to it by Lara Croft?
Plus this argument is a double edged sword, female leads can bring attention to a game that needs it...but they can also serve up as an unneeded distraction.
Need an example?
Booyah.
Yes, Bayonetta was an acclaimed game...I personally didn't like it as much as everyone else but even I won't deny that it was a pretty fun game. But when was Bayonetta an effective female lead? Every scene of every action of every...everything was to show you that "HEY! LOOK! SHE'S ALMOST NAKED AND SHE'S SEXY AND SHE DANCES AND SHE'S TALL LOOK AT HER ALMOST BOOBS AND HER LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG LEGS" it got the point where the game almost took a backseat to all of the fan service and gyrations you could throw Bayonetta in. It became DISTRACTING. For a more extreme example you can look at pieces of shit like X-Blades (which I reviewed) and DoA: Xtreme Volleyball. Those games were made, marketed, and SOLD under the idea that the game has NOTHING more to offer than jigglin' ass and titties...oh, and there MIGHT be a game under there, too. Until DoA Xtreme 2 when they pretty much removed the entire game aspect from it.
Those are the type of female led games that the industry needs to get away from. No, not every female needs to be a gender bending tomboy, but why are all of these rated M for Mature games seemingly made for 14 year olds with overactive hormones?
But even in the negative side of the fact...they still got people interested in the games and got people out there to play them. But what DOES that say overall about female leads in video games? Does the female lead HAVE to be solely used as a tool to draw people into a game they might not have played otherwise or a game that might not have been able to stand on its own two feet? Or do we need to get past this 'sex sells' mentality and create a truly well characterized female video game lead that doesn't have to hide behind silence and armor or what many would call objectification?
Actually...the better question is...
Does it really matter in the long run?
In all honesty?
No. It doesn't really matter. There are TONS upon TONS of arguments in the video game space all the time. Graphics vs. Gameplay, Sequels vs. New IP, and Rehash vs. Reboot...I personally think the Lead Character Gender Wars is a useless argument.
Male or female. Black, white, yellow, or blue...the main character of a game doesn't matter unless it is characterized well. If it's a character we can get into, we can believe in the situation and more importantly FITS the situation then we are willing to take it for a ride.
We are playing the game, we are directing the action. Even in games where we the players are supposed to be the lead (most WRPGs for example) we still take an active role in leading the character in their adventures as we see fit...so in the end it doesn't matter what the lead is, we just want them to be GOOD.
This brings up a different part of this altogether. Female or male...leads in video games right now are just NOT GOOD. They are generic, badly written, and in extreme cases just excuses to HAVE a lead. The industry itself needs to grow up (and in the case of female leads especially) mature and get some leads out there worth remembering. For every Nathan Drake and Lara Croft out there we have a ton of Master Chiefs and Bayonettas. For every well written, well thought out male OR female lead we have a generic faceless player avatar and a fan service distraction.
Gamers love to defend gaming as an art form constantly, but when you put games next to films, TV, and books...are there any characters male or female that you can truly say a child-or anyone for that matter-can look up to?
So is does this whole gender war argument even matter? No. Because the large gap between good male and female leads is just a drop in the bucket compared so some of the bigger overall problems going on with game development, writing, and direction. Let's get away from one dimensional army men and silent protagonists that are still all over the male side of things before we try to apply those same one dimensional lead characters to females, too.
No Working Game Update this week because...well...I'm currently shooting a movie and I have NO TIME for the video games. But we still have time for a...
Working Question
Do you think BioShock Infinite will be the BioShock 2 we should've had or will it be a case of too little too late? Yes, I want you to pass judgment on it based on just a small trailer.
Don't act like you haven't done it before.
Until next time, I'm Jordan Williams...and I really REALLY hope Monday Night Combat gets supported, because it's probably one of the best multiplayer XBLA releases in a LONG time.
