The Witcher 3: Gender Roles In The Video Game Industry

Video games have been around for years with many different types of consoles and games. The video game industry has grown into a $20 billion dollar industry over the past ten years, and it only shows signs of growing larger in the years to come. In the United States alone, the market has grown considerably where 60% of all Americans play video games, 40% are women, and 60% of all gamers are between the ages of 25 through 44 years old (games-advertising.com). According to an article on Gamespot.com, analysts estimate that the video game category will have about 50 to 55 more square feet of shelve space in Best Buy by the year 2007.

Watching the video “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games” about the sexism that exists in the video game industry was very informative and an eye-opener. I do agree that there are many distinct similarities in the way women are portrayed in these video games. Female characters have limited roles and they are shown typically attractive, sexually suggestive, weak and ineffective. These characteristics send a powerful message that influences people. Although I believe they are not intended to be sexist, many people don´t realize how attitudes can shift with practice especially that many of the gamers are young.

On her YouTube channel, Anita Sarkeesian criticizes popular culture over how they choose to represent women and women’s issues in their content. Unexcused from this list is the massive amount of video games that have been coming out since the 1980’s. Specifically in a series of videos entitled “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games,” Sarkeesian identifies how different commonly used tropes, like the damsel in distress and the woman in the refrigerator negatively affect women in our society today. She argues these tropes objectify women and lead to problems in our perception of women in society. The tropes Sarkeesian identifies in her videos, specifically the damsel in distress and the women in the refrigerator, objectify women by reducing

The absence of female characters are due to the overwhelming population of male characters in video games. In the article, “ The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female Characters in Video Games” the authors, Jeroen Jansz and Raynel G. Martis portray the absolute dominance of male characters in the gaming community. Jansz and Martis state that, “ He did not study the actual content of the games, but limited his research to a content analysis of the covers of the boxes of 47 games. He counted 124 human individuals in the cover illustrations. A vast majority of 92% was male (115 characters); only 8% was female (9 characters)

How can an industry with widespread appeal to men and women continue to misrepresent and misgender women? Video games have been used as a platform for entertainment between the ages of 18 and 49. The entertainment factor of video games comes from the various forms of art, cultures, worlds, languages, and stories that come from each individual game. The male players of video games lead the market, causing the industry of video games to create games that would appeal to males, such as creating female characters that would attract them. Because of this, female video game players have become the minority in the video game industry. Although video game companies claim to target all types of video game players, women have become the victims of patriarchal sexism by being objectified and stereotyped as a way to increase sales.

Gender disparity in video games is a topic that both scholars and major gaming icons have discussed before. However, the topic recently resurfaced with the upsurging population of female gamers. The integration of females was a spectacle that caused a massive culture shock. Many members of the gaming community were unsure how to handle the change and took to discriminating females. While discrimination may seem unimportant, many scholars and icons believe it is a prominent factor of gender disparity: an environment which typically favors males, a hostile or “toxic” atmosphere, and repeated stereotypes all manifest certain behaviors of both genders that can cause a disparity to grow. Although some sources claim gender disparity is evident in gaming as a whole, others insist the novelty of female discrimination in video games is less prominent due to a more leveled percentage of male-to-females in gaming. However, both agreed that the competitive gaming community is a different story. Time and time again the competitive gaming community was mentioned for its exclusion of women due to biased and misogynistic members who sexualize and degrade females. These members believe women are inferiors that encroach on their territory with unskilled and seductive natures. Therefore, for the females in the gaming community, their actions will shape the future of women in the competitive gaming community. The change in female treatment is detrimental to gender disparity. Not only because

Sexism within the gaming industry is one of the many topics of debate which prevent the medium from reaching a sophisticated status within society. While it is often debated that the male figure is also exaggerated within these cultures, this essay will predominantly look at the depiction of women in it.

After watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part Two, I was able to see how gender roles both differ and remain the same in this movie. Although some gender stereotypes apply to the film, I think many characters defy the stigmas typically assigned to males and females. Strong female roles, such as Hermione Granger, Molly Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and Luna Lovegood, help portray sturdy independent women who take charge. Reflecting on this movie, even as a dedicated Harry Potter fan, I have always admired how female actors in the series have had “the brains” in tricky situations. After watching the movie, I saw themes of power feminism, stereotyping, and negative connotations of males who express emotion.

“Some 50% of men and 48% of women play video games, while 15% of men and 6% of women say the term “gamer” describes them well. This supports that an almost equal number of men and women play games and identify as gamers.” As stated, an almost equal number of people play games no matter gender. This would mean that companies would design their games to be more unisex, allowing both genders to play and maximise profits. This also ties in with the idea that sex appeal is given to both male and female characters in games.

Video games are a series of images manipulated onto a screen. The screen can be a television, computer screen, or it can also be a cell phone. The images are represented by bits or pixels. There are video games for almost every platform ever made. In the past, video games were a thing that only lucky, rich people had. Now they are something almost everyone has. You can find video games in stores, book shops, garage sales, and many other places. They are the most common form of entertainment.

Since their early beginnings the video game industry has given distorted images of people both physically and psychologically. Both men and women have been heavily impacted by their ridiculous body images of both men and women. The impact that video games are having on its users starts as young as 10 when most kids start to play video games. This number has declined about 7 years( Luke Plunnet Kotaku) Although they seem meaningless and just part of the story, components of video games can actually have a lasting effect on the minds of children leaving the future generation to be one thats racist and disrespectful to women.

First of all, despite the gaming audience being half women, most AAA games are made focussed entirely on male in mind. Ken Levine himself said that “Bioshock Infinite” was marketed to appeal to frat boys. And Naughty Dog has revealed they didn’t want to see what women thought of “The Last of Us” and that they were trying to appeal exclusively to males. While the director of “Remember me” has said the female protagonist has been killed off by publishers because men allegedly don’t want to play as a “girly girl”. Mainstream game development is predominately designed by men, for men. In the same way female characters are being designed to appeal to men, so too are male characters, but not in the objectifying sense. Objectification is the

Video Games. Video Gaming has been a popular form of entertainment in modern pop culture since the early 1980’s. From the early beginnings of software producers such as Nintendo, they have been creating games that have become favorable classics in only a few decades. With the most popular classic video games including Super Mario Bros. (1985), Donkey Kong (1981), Pac-Man (1980), and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), we can quickly note some patterns. One of the patterns that we can note is all of the main playable protagonists within these games are male. The second pattern that we can note is the majority of the games listed above have a storyline written about rescuing a princess — one of the only notable female characters within the game. Along with this, the female characters are only story-advancing non-playable characters (NPC’s). When the online gaming community was first introduced and popularized in the early 2000’s, females in the gaming community quickly faced another obstacle; sexism.

As long as anyone can recall there has been a significant underrepresentation of women in video games. Roles of women in video game has been unrecognized, unaccepted and unappreciated. In the most games like Call of Duty, Halo women are use as target of violence or object that men characters wins after winning a battle. In these kind of video games, women are victim or overly sexualized of the women body. So, the question anyone might ask is, is this sexism or are women used as object in these kind of roles? Answer is yes.

As video games is such a big medium, they are able to convey messages to the players in a more low-key way, gender representations and stereotyping are both big things that the video gaming industry can effectively play a big part in. Stereotyping refers to one group’s generalised and widely accepted perception about the personal attributes of members of another group (Ashmore & Boca, 1981; Dates & Barlow, 1990). Within most traditional media, gender and racial stereotypes are the most pervasive two. Increased distorted representation of women and minorities can have a negative effect on the way that the viewer sees that particular group. The way that video games are able to influence large masses is another reason to why it is able to be classified as a legitimate form of media. The definition of media as stated above being,“the main means of mass communication (television, radio, and newspapers) regarded collectively.”. Female characters have changed and evolved throughout the time of video games, the first ever playable female character in a mainstream game was created in 1986 and then another well known female character was created by 1996, and that one being the protagonist of Tomb Raider, Lara Croft. By 2014 it is now able to be chosen by the player in a collective of certain games to weather they play as male or female. It isn't uncommon to see a female characters in a video game to be over sexualised, much like mass media in todays age. Female characters are also commonly portrayed as a “damsel in distress”, and the male protagonist is usually the one to save her. Mass medias such as the news and newspapers have this in common with video games, making it out that females usually need some sort of male “hero” in their lives. There is a big push for more women to be involved in the creation of video games