Hmm.... well they do have something of a point, in that your actions DO have an effect on what happens (IIRC, the forces that come to aid humanity in the final battle depend on player actions to some significant degree, for example), however it doesn't excuse the ultimate ending cinematic being, as I've said before, nothing more than a photoshop filter. Not to mention the super special secret ending which takes the finality and closure of the whole thing and throws it all into doubt, which is a total copout on the part of the writers. And before you ask, yes I hated it when they did that in Inception, too.
Unfortunately even if the ending of their narrative was amazing, it won't save them from their lackluster game design. But that's a whole other can of worms.
Hahaha... Yeah that's how a lot of us feel I think. We don't want to exclude women but it seems like they're always getting mad at us for no particular reason. Guess that's just life though.
My thoughts have changed a little bit after reading some of the comments here and reading this article: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/11/nerds-and-male-privilege/all/1/
Unfortunately now I just feel like there's nothing a gamer guy can do, and that no matter what we say or how we act, women are going to feel oppressed and accuse us of wrongdoing. I guess my only advice to women going forward would be to be SPECIFIC in your accusations, instead of addressing the male portion of the gaming community as a whole. Because the vast majority don't mean any harm and quite frankly are offended at being accused of sexism. I think this is a big part of why women experience backlash when going after this issue. Male gamers (myself included) feel that we're being accused of some heinous crime when our perception is that we've done nothing wrong.
You can, and you absolutely should. I guess the part that I'm failing to understand is where this "ditzy female sex toy" resides in video games. See my reply to your comment.
First of all thank you for bringing a female perspective to the comments section. I hope you don't mind if I take the opportunity to ask a question or two.
Where is it that you draw the line between "sex toy" and "strong heroine who is also sexy"? I think that if this division were more clear to us males it would be easier for us to understand what exactly is sexist about the portrayal of women in games. At what point are the breasts too large, or the outfit too revealing? I think it's easy to forget that these women spend most of their time in these games that you have mentioned (Metroid and SSB:B) fighting the other characters and in the case of Metroid winning almost all the time. Does it matter that she's sporting a pair double Ds? As many others here have touched on, it seems like you're perceiving the character as an instance of sexism when really it is just the way the artists drew the character.
I'm noticing a lot of talk about how men WANT to be portrayed as the overtly huge, bulging biceps hero, but I don't think that's true. Having that stereotype show up in games just makes it more difficult for men to live up to society's expectations. The same is also true of the female stereotypes that are being slammed.
And by this logic, women must dislike stepping into the shoes of a strong, sexy heroine? Or perhaps I'm missing the point entirely and what women want is to be portrayed with more intellectual depth? If the latter is the case, then Portal 2 is a poor example of a game that does this well: if I recall correctly, we really didn't get any chance to delve into Chell's psyche. And besides, Chell was pretty attractive. Similar thing goes for Mirror's Edge, though at least there you get any indication at all of what's going through the protagonist's mind. But once again, she's got no shortage of sex appeal.
Even though I might not like the cultural effect of exaggerated male protagonists, and it is by no means an accurate portrayal of my real self, I enjoy entertaining that fantasy. I think that women who get mad or offended by inaccurate portrayals of women in protagonist roles are refusing to step into the fantasy, which to me displays a fundamental misunderstanding about gaming.
This issue is so complex... So what happens when you have a complex and genuine female protagonist? Are there then males who exist solely as sexual objects for that woman? If not, aren't you just throwing out any portrayal of sexuality in your game, and taking a step backwards with your narrative? I would be curious to hear Ms. Sarkeesian's opinion on BioWare RPGs, because as much as they are terrible dating sims they contain a variety of female characters with well-rounded personalities, and if I'm wrong on that count then please explain why.
I also think that this problem is compounded by the fact that both sides feel like the victim. On the one hand, gaming culture has long been a "boys club" so women feel excluded, and partly as a result less women go into game development, meaning there is nobody to influence the portrayal of women in games, which makes the environment even more hostile with oversexualized representations and all the other issues Ms. Sarkeesian brings up. On the other hand, as many of those youtube commenters pointed out, men feel that women are perfectly equal and any further push by feminism is perceived as a malicious attempt to reverse the proverbial polarity of gender roles.
Furthermore I think that the effort to make women more accepted in the gaming community as a whole would be helped by an effort on the part of people like Ms. Sarkeesian to cite "niche" games that are not a part of the mainstream. That would make me, at least, much more willing to believe that she knows what she's talking about and isn't just another COD-toddler (not to be accusational, but this is a real sticking point for me when it comes to games media in general). Women especially have a - deserved or not - reputation for considering themselves gamers because they play Halo with their boyfriends on the weekend. Plenty of men are guilty of this as well, but those guys are fortunate in that there is no pre-existing stigma.
Though I do disagree with a lot of his post, @fatee brings up a good point on the language of "feminism". As he says, the very word is divisive and counter-productive to the discussion, conjuring the adversarial battle of the sexes from the get-go.
Look, guys don't necessarily want to exclude women from video games, but it's extremely important that anyone who wants to be taken seriously spends some time immersed in the culture and prove that they know what they're talking about before they go off accusing gamers of being misogynist jerks and crying over how women are over-sexualized and unrealistic. I am loath to agree with any of those comments on youtube concerning this topic, however there is a grain of truth to be found: men are very much also misrepresented in games. It is also a trope, but guys don't complain about it. It's not often you get to play the "average joe" in a video game, nearly all the male protagonists nowadays are super ripped heroic badasses who bathe in testosterone and drink the blood of their enemies. Fact is, it's kind of fun to step into those shoes, because real life is pretty boring by comparison.
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