I thought this was about the 'attempted rape' that will be in the Tomb Raider reboot.

Carry on.

Bonus Gamespot comment:

I'm not saying women should be all helpless in video games (and they're not mostly, just look at Raine Bouchard in Resistance: Retribution), but really, a guy being a damsel in distress would be far, far worse.

I'm not saying all women in video games should conform to pre-defined gender-roles (and they don't anyway because here is ONE example), but in reality it has to be a woman because if a man were in trouble, that would be FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

Even when these people try and be helpful, they are completely not.

There is no sarcasm in that suggestion.

Genuinely quite baffled with the level of bile this documentary or whatever it is has attracted, it hasn't even been made yet.

I didn't realise Samus lost more clothes at the end of Metroid based on how fast you finished it (only ever finished it once). However, excluding that and Other M, I think Samus is a brilliant female protagonist. She is completely 1-dimensional, an icon rather than a character and therefore exactly like the men in similar games. Even her suit is so armoured that it is literally impossible to determine her gender.

I have a similar attitude to the "Hero" rescues "Damsel". Neither of these things are representative of real characters and therefore of real human beings. "Hero" is shorthand for "Player controlled device" and Damsel is shorthand for "Thing that signifies success". It could be a ball and a goal. Hero and Damsel were probably chosen unthinkingly out of tradition which I don't think is so bad, although I would be happy to play a game with reverse gender roles. I'm more bothered about character design than what gender they happen to be.

Once people start attempting to introduce real, 3-dimensional characters into games then of course we run into problems, but in 90% of the games I play I don't want this. I prefer games stripped back with as little unnecessary "characterization" as possible.

Brooks wrote:

Massively affirmative actionize every major studio, immediately, for at least one hardware cycle. Nothing of consequence would go wrong.

Would that mean Mario would have to have a sex change? I guess he could just have a sister, with a moustache.

Brooks wrote:

gruntpile

Lovely.

Brooks wrote:

I don't care, I just want a bunch of women to decide. I crave novelty and a major shake-up in the make up of an industry's gruntpile seems a way to achieve that.

Women would still want to make money, and the big money is in the young male market. I'm not sure much would really change in mainstream games. They might have an even lower opinion of their audience than male developers do.

Me and @tempy had a good laugh on Maria's question thread about changing the typical protagonist to something different. 
I would too welcome the move away from the all powerful 'hero' to something different.
I never understand why gaming always has to be about running around, killing stuff. 
A more interesting game (which was said on the Watch Dogs Thread) would be to have the person sneak around without a gun. Or with a gun and a rubbish aim. Doesn't have to be a man or a woman then.. 
Wouldn't really matter.

Brooks wrote:

You can still achieve a lot of characterisation through mere costume design, animation sets, player's palette of mechanical verbs anyway.

This type of characterisation is usually just to endear me to the protagonist in a superficial way though. So I'd be looking out for character design that was artistically interesting, the quality of animation, small voice samples that were vaguely funny or at the very least not annoying. I'm not looking for any depth of character.

Take Lara for instance. If I were viewing her as a real character I'd be far more mortified by her treatment of wild animals than whether or not she was a sexist stereotype. There's no reason for her tits to be that big, though.

But do you not think, Roujin, that just by saying "Boys will be boys" is a bit of a cop-out answer?

Shouldn't we instead be looking at why people make, buy and enjoy these games? Looking at society's bias towards games where women are never portrayed as more than objects to be saved with a guaranteed reward of affection/sex.

And I will not accept the answer “it’s what sells games.” That is a fallacy. Of course in a society that doesn’t question these values, and in fact promotes them, these games are going to rise to the top.

while i have no problem with more female protagonists, or trying to get more girls interested in games etc, i do find the argument about portraying 'real women' in games a bit silly...because there are no 'real men' portrayed either.  games are escapism, and you whether you play as a hero or heroine, you're still playing a stereotype, and generally it's either super person or a cartoon, often both.  nathan drake isn't a real man, he's an action hero who would rip your arms off then fuck your mate's hot mother...and that's why we like 'being' him.  and lara croft isn't a real woman, because there would be no fun watching a 'real' woman try to climb up a mountain then wrestle a bear.  yeah, so her tits are maybe too big to be realistic, but no one complains much that male protagonist B has shoulders that are too broad...
if more girls than boys played games in the same genres that are popular now, the only difference is there would be more hot women rescuing hunky men with ripped shirts...

As much as this may seem narrow minded of me, but maybe this is more down to values of countries rather than male/female demographics?
Japan with it's over sexualisation of women in media (manga, anime, hentai, idols). Seeing as the majority of examples of over sexualised women come from the East it does kind of make sense.
While the west is coming away from these examples (Valve with portal 2, Ubisoft with their female protagonist in the ACIII spin off, Bioware with it's ability to have a cusomisable avatar and indulge in same sex relationships), it's no surprise that many americans will be pro male in terms of gender as it still succumbs to a successful male/sports jock way of life and is a very religious nation where many a woman believes it is her duty to god to be devoted to her man while he supports her.

That what was at RamSteelwood's weird prediction re: inevitability of hunk rescue overload.

Nathan Drake the design is a powerful element in my lack of desire to Unchart.