Finding an equal playing field in video game design
Throughout her time in the gaming world, Justine Stewart said she has seen many companies try and fail at depicting women appropriately in video games.
“I’ve seen companies try to write strong female characters but they’re not actually important to the game at all,” the senior digital arts major said. “(These companies) just do it so that people praise them for being feminists.”
Female students like Stewart that are entering the video game industry as players and developers stress the importance of including female characters that are significant to the plot because the male dominated industry has featured women in video games as overly sexualized and disposable characters.
Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic and feminist, started a video web series called “Feminist Frequency,” in which she analyzes how women are often misrepresented in pop culture narratives. Sarkeesian’s critiques have reached millions of viewers, but not everyone agrees with her.
The critic was forced to cancel a speech set for Oct. 15 at Utah State University because she was being threatened with a mass shooting, which is one of the many death and rape threats she has received, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We’re actually a great source of income if (companies) didn’t alienate us with boobs, butt and face,” Stewart said. “We actually do want to play games but a lot of the time we’re turned off by the fact that we can’t play as females, or how females end up being decorations or prizes in the games.”
Forty-eight percent of gamers in the U.S. are female, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
Graphic by Lauren Armenta, Art Director.
Forty-eight percent of gamers in the U.S. are female and women purchase games just as often men, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Last year, consumers spent approximately $21 billion on hardware, accessories and games.
Stewart said that some companies are looking to tap into the female audience because it will result in even more revenue.
Even so, Stewart often finds that women in games and movies are designed so delicately that they can’t have drastic facial expressions and look unrealistically perfect in every frame.
“I think it’s because we’ve all subtly accepted the fact that this is what beautiful women look like,” Stewart said. “Until we change that, people are still going to think that it’s the ideal design.”
Sheldon Borenstein, a digital arts professor at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, said it’s important to design characters with absurd features, so they can’t represent real human beings and to add excitement to the game.
“I would think if you were going to draw a super-esque type woman and you drew her of normal proportions, she would be boring,” Borenstein said. “But it’s the same thing with men.”
Stewart said video game companies have started hiring more women in the last 30 years, especially in producing, writing and design roles, so they can create games that are more perceptive to women.
“People are hungry for female developers because they want more diversity in the workplace,” Stewart said. “You can’t expect a huge group of men leading men to know exactly what’s sensitive or how female characters should react in their game.”
Stewart said she doesn’t understand why people are reacting negatively to the fact that more women are becoming involved in the gaming industry.
“It doesn’t really involve them and it doesn’t change the quality of the games because it can really only make it better,” Stewart said. “If they want guy games, catered to guys, made by guys, they can find plenty of that; there’s no shortage.”
Rikki Albert, a freshman digital arts major, said she began to realize women were being misrepresented in video games at a very young age.
Albert said it’s important for people to recognize that video games aren’t realistic and they’re solely for entertainment.
“The people who play these games need to realize that that’s not how women look and that’s not how women act and as long as you believe that and you know that, it doesn’t matter what’s in the video game,” Albert said.
Borenstein said he makes sure his students understand that the physical variance between men and women is very minimal.
“The difference between male and female is the rib cage, the pelvis, the clavicles and a little bit of body fat,” Borenstein said. “Everything else is in the brain and that’s the way I teach it.”
Borenstein noted that in his 35 years of experience, most of his bosses have been female.
“They’re professional, they’re tough, they’re good and they didn’t get that job because they’re anything less,” Borenstein said. “The one question I hear all the time is, ‘How do women make it in the industry?’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? The same way anybody makes it in the industry.’”
Photo courtesy Tookapic.
