Video Games : A Multi Billion Dollar Domain

A more in-depth study may look at video games from a Marxist point of view, characterizing the games as a modern day “opiate of the masses” with multi-billion dollar corporations publishing the games to keep the proletariat occupied and oblivious to their plights. A feminist may cite the standard role of female video game characters as being the “damsel in distress” and even strong female characters usually being relegated to sex symbol status.

Given that association, this new study took a gander at whether exemplifying sexualized female symbols online changed ladies ' conduct. The Stanford scientists asked 86 ladies matured 18-40 to play utilizing either a sexualized symbol or a non-sexualized symbol (dressed provocatively or conservatively). At that point, specialists outlined some of those symbols to resemble the player encapsulating them. Those ladies who played utilizing sexualized symbols who seemed as though them were all the more tolerating of the assault myth, as indicated by the study. Subsequent to playing the diversion, ladies reacted to numerous inquiries with answers along a five-point scale (emphatically differ to firmly concur), including, "In the lion 's share or assaults, the casualty is indiscriminate or has a terrible notoriety." Those who played attractive symbols who looked like themselves will probably reply "concur" or "unequivocally concur" than those ladies who had non-hot symbols who did not seem as though them. Members were likewise requested that free compose their musings after the study. Those with sexualized symbols will probably self-generalize in their expositions after play. In spite of the fact that this is a little study and unquestionably not a conclusive response to the subject of how computer games influence female players, the outcomes do raise concerns. Upwards of 46% of gamers are ladies, and, as indicated by this examination, in a large portion of the most mainstream

It is difficult to find a video game that does not depict females as a damsel in distress or a sex object. The target audience for video games has been males, and video game companies are marketing to males with stereotypes of females in video games. A surprising finding is that around 150 million Americans, or almost half of women play video games (Kelleher, 2015). Yet video games continue to depict females as old-fashioned stereotypes that leave a lasting affect on a female’s health.

Video games do not only hypersexualize women. Although, researches have noted for years that most video games target a male audience (Ivory. 2), the hypersexualization of men in video games has taken a toll on their players (Greenberg et al. 3). Mass media that display hypersexualized men, and women, such as video games, not only encourages women to become anorexic, it encourages men to take steroids, or to excessively exercise (Barlett et al. 1). Researchers, Barlett, and Harris conducted an experiment in which both men and women were immersed within a video game, that depicted both women and men as hypersexualized (ibid).

One may ask why does any of this matter? Why should I care about sexy prostitutes in video games? What’s the real harm in sexually objectifying women? When men use female NPCs as tools or commodities, their actions of doing so actually make them powerful. So these interactive actions highlights male heterosexual dominance, which simultaneously reinforcing the view that women’s primary role is to satisfy the desires of men.In fact, the negative impacts of sexual objectification have been studied extensively for years and the effects on people of all genders are quite astonishing and fearsome. Researchers found exposing to these negative portray of women would impact players’ perceptions and beliefs about real world women and encourage them to

After an hour of frustration and an inability to find a topic for this qualitative gender portrayal, I gave up and decided to play video games to relax. All of a sudden, I sat staring at my TV screen completely dumbfounded as a nearly nude woman popped up on the loading screen of Grand Theft Auto V. For very obvious reasons, I was inspired to qualitatively analyze Grand Theft Auto V focusing specifically on gender stereotypes and sexualization present in the game. In order to accurately depict the video game’s portrayal of gender I studied both the story mode and online mode looking closely at the actions and speech, physical appearance, and prevalence of females within the game.

Throughout the world women are depicted to be oversexualized among forms of media such as video games and comic books. The idea of oversexualization towards female characters is that they have been often drawn and animated in hypersexual ways. Even going as far as viewing them as a sex object, their revealing body images are eye candy through the eyes of men. Hence women found in comic books and video games are frequently emphasized by their excessive physical appearances, objectification, portrayal, and character role.

For years, the video game industry has catered almost exclusively to men and reinforced a heterosexual cis white male norm with regards to whom they portray as characters and which audiences they market toward. Walk into any toy store, and you’ll see most aisles clearly divided by gender: girls get dolls and dog collectibles while boys get racing tracks and action figures. Even toys that are marketed towards all children, like Legos, still reinforce this idea of binary gender separation: girls build princess castles, boys build space ships. Hoever, even though the products are exclusively marketed, all audiences are still targeted by the company as a whole. This is true for many different types of products, except for one huge, glaring exception: video games. While many other forms of media have mainstream activism to push their representation and inclusion along, video games aren’t often discussed in that kind of light beyond side blogs and dissertations.

Looking past the blatant sexism of how females are depicted, even more disturbing is the way that many of the more popular video games appear to parallel real-life standards of normative masculinity. In Western society in particular, standards for men dictate that they must constantly strive to be successful and must compete with other men in order to reach the “top,” the most powerful position, the best paying job, the most attractive wife and family, and so on. In examining the design of video games, Soukup is quick to point out how popular games have this same “entelechial motivational system,” with players constantly striving to master the game and gain power, often so that they can dominate other players or destroy NPCs in combat, or to otherwise gain complete control of the game, at which point they have finally “beaten” it (Soukup, 165-168). These

Representation of Women in Video Games Gender exists in many aspects of an individual’s life, from family, to school, and peers. The presence of media plays a significant part in an individual’s socialization. The products of this system can have negative consequences if the media someone consumes carries negative stereotypes. For many oppressed groups, these stereotypes are damaging and can become a basis for their oppression.

Visual media such as video games have developed so much over the last twenty years. Games have become a popular media with all types of people throughout the world. This media affects many different people of all ages, religions, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation and especially gender. Gender bias is a huge issue within the games media. Issues such as stereotypes, objectification, overly sexualised characters mostly female and poor representation of female characters for example ‘damsel in distress’. These issues have been changing over time but are still within the media today. I want to discuss in this essay positive female archetypes within games and be able to compare overused female stereotypes in games to heroic female

The way one presents oneself is usually an ample enough reason to be judged positively or negatively. This factor is usually amplified by the surrounding and setting set for the subject, and it usually determines whether the subject’s self-presentation is fitting or being completely inappropriate to his or her surroundings. In video games, the issue of women being misrepresented by her role as a sex object and over-sexualized aesthetic design had always been an unsolved floating problem. While this dilemma continue to exist as a negativity in the modern video games is often overlooked as a meaningless eye candy for the male gaze, sometimes the subject of sex and sexuality in video game exists for a reason much deeper than simply objectifying women for the sake of sales or male gaze. Although not always, sex and sexuality exists to add a certain of immersion of realism to the game as the subject is a natural part of our biology as human beings.

Lara Croft is a well-known adventurer. From rock climbing in Bolivia to shooting at vicious monkeys in a forest in India, Lara Croft has done it all. There is much more to this adventurer though. According to Helen W. Kennedy, author of the article “Lara Croft: Feminiets or Cyberbimbo?”, “[Lara] is a positive role model for young girls or just the perfect combination of eye candy and thumb candy for the boys.” From her debut in 1996 to now, Lara is also seen as an iconic female figure within the gaming community. With Lara we are able to see a strong female role who, unfortunately, is at the same time is overly sexualized. Girls in the gaming community are given a chance to be represented but at a cost. Lara Croft allows for there to be a

The portrayal of men and women in video games, as in other media, is a subject of research in gender studies. This topics is discuss in terms of sexism in video gaming. Especially, women are underrepresented or use as objectification in mainstream games. Women in video games are generally, as a rule of thumb, killed, raped, abused or rescued by the male heroes. This is extremely sad to see because the role of women in society is changing compare to ten years ago. Women has been proven themselves to be stronger and tough in different fields such as sports, politics, education but the representation hasn’t change.

A fact that contributes to the objectification and stereotyping of women is that as of 2011, 56% of video game players are male, and the other 44% are female (“Essential Facts” 4). This discrepancy caused video game industries to create games that will sell to the majority-- the male players. However, the 44% of female players are still considered a large consumer group (Shanley 11). Despite the 12% discrepancy between male and female players, industries that have chosen to focus solely on their male consumers can be seen as patriarchal. This patriarchy has caused video game industries to create games that would appeal to male gamers only (“Gender