Are game developers ethically responsible for gender roles in games?

Honestly, I think you will stick with your misogynist fantasy of how the world ought to be no matter what anyone says, but there are two things that stick out at me in this as the most blatantly ridiculous.

"...as if bees, ants, or any other species of insect could be accused of being patriarchal simply because they've evolved such that the female does exactly that."
You seem to miss a key difference here. You're comparing earth insects, who's functions are, by and large, limited to eat, hunt/forage, and breed, to a SENTIENT insectoid species. Ants vs people who happen to look like ants. Yeah...

"..the greater issue is whether game developers have any ethical responsibility to portray these issues..."
Leaving aside whether or not they have a responsibility to do so (though I think they do) wouldn't you think they would want the sales that would result from creating more inclusive games? If devs create games that MORE people want to play, then MORE people will buy them and they will get MORE money.
Seems awfully simple to me, even if you don't give half a crap about the ethics of being a decent human being.

Tamar, ok so maybe being more inclusive would boost sales in certain sectors a bit... But you really think that the small increase of a LGBT friendly game would outweigh the costs and lost productivity of having game designers creating a world they're forced to create, without their own input?

If the gay community wants a gay-focused game, then they're welcomed to make one. The thing is a video game has a large artistic focus, and you can't force an artist to do something because it's right. So, if you think it would really be beneficial (cost-wise) maybe you should make a business plan, and stop saying what others have a responsibility of doing?

Sounds awfully simple, but looks like you missed the point of the article.

Right, cause a musician who now probably never has to a day's work for the rest of his life and has the creative freedom to do whatever he wants is the same as the designers and artists working for a AAA video game company that are held ransom by the marketing, production, and ultimately the bottom line. Cause, you know, so many studio's decisions to not include female characters is an artistic choice, not a money issue (oh wait, except Far Cry 2, and Mass Effect, and the list goes on and on). These are ultimately artistic decisions . . . right. Get your head out of your ass Mike. As for your third paragraph, there is so much literature that contradicts so much of what you're saying that it's appalling this blog post can be "published" and endorsed in any official manner. The author has clearly not done any research and is not an expert on gender.

First things first, if the developers were going for an insect based species in Mass Effect they got it wrong. Yes the Queen has all the babies, but there are only a handfull of males who all serve the queen. Every other insect in the hive that you've ever seen I garrantee is female. If they were following that example they should have made all the models in the game you see female. The insect analogy doesn't work.

Also I agree with you that culture designates different roles for both men and women, but there is no biological imperative that designates what those roles consist of. There are modern day cultures on earth where it means to be a man to subserveant to the females rulers. Another where they eat the men if they are displeased. In every religion you can find reveared females figures even if they weren't there originally they are integrated in. It is the Mother Goddess phenomena, eg. Mary in Christianity.

Now to put the last arguement into the mix. If it is a wholly artistic mediuem and their goal was to present a diverse Galaxy full of different and interesting species and cultures, wouldn't that also correlate to presenting their varied views on the most basic sociological question eg. gender roles. If however, you only want to view Mass Effect as a reflection of our societies views then it would have to include how we are striving towards that equality not mireing ourselves in the status quo.

Alex Raymond's piece was not an attack on Mass Effect, but a critique of it. Becaue as a race we are rather oblivious to most things outside ourselves. If we are oblivious to something we will continue to ignore it unless it is pointed out. Alex was just pointing out a problem she saw and explaining why she saw it.

Let's distinguish between the author and the article. First, the author. He comes off as uneducated. Lots of sweeping statements about science. Lots of gestures at theory. If he is educated, it's in a very narrow tradition. It's the kind of tradition that reproduces sociogenic oppression. Read some Fanon, some Dussel, some Prigogine and Stengers; read NATURE weekly. Try it. I dare you.

Next, the article. This article is (though frustrating) helpful. How? Rhetorically. It helps introduce some helpful distinctions like the ones made by Alex H. and Tamar. There's a difference between what's possible in big industry art and what's possible artistically. There's a difference between representing insects and representing sentient human-insects. From my vantage point, how about more argument and less categorical opinions? What exactly is the "branch of feminism" that you refer to in the third paragraph? Who are it proponents? What are its texts? How is it different from or similar to other types of feminism?

I don't know why many posters are so resentful about the portrayal of women in videogames like Mass Effect, it's not as extreme as the way that latin americans are portrayed in Dead Rising, and even i, a Venezuelan, did not find that offensive at all, i found it a little funny, if not unaccurate, but i did not feel at once that my nationality was at stake, so cut it out people.

These are all still works of fiction, yes, the studio and the developers have the final say in the matter, but it doesn't take it away that it's still a work of fiction, if you don't like it, then don't buy it or don't play it again, we could talk about several stereotypes for men, several stereotypes for aliens, etc. Yet, Alex Raymond does not, she chooses to talk about the one thing that bothers her, it's her right, it's her opinion, but it certainly is not accurate, nor does it validate her discomfort.

I'm dumbfounded at the credulity and hostility of my dissenters here. I disagree with a feminist's views, and now I'm a "misogynist" and "uneducated".

Here's a challenge: do a search on Google Scholar for the "commodity model" of sex and see how much actual research there is to validate it. The answer is zero. It's a hypothesis with no empirical support.

Nor did I, at any point in the article, endorse or condemn any role women play in any culture, because that wasn't the point of the article. I suggested that males and females are biologically hardwired to perform some social roles better than others. Somehow, from that, I have a misogynistic world view. But anyone who actually believes that men and women are equally adept at all the exact same things needs to take a course in evolutionary psychology and/or primatology. There is not a primate species on the entire planet where males and females perform the same social function. There are many things that females *tend* to be better at than males, and vice-versa; our fundamental differences are integral to our ability to live, as an interdependent species, in a cooperative society — we NEED males and females to be better at different social functions, just as we need people who are good at physics AND people who are good at physical labor.

I welcome my dissenters to explain, specifically, why I am so completely wrong about this. Try reading The Naked Ape trilogy by the zoologist Desmond Morris, or Our Inner Ape by the primatologist Frans De Waal, and then keep trying to convince yourself there's no biological root to our social differences. Just because we are different does not mean we cannot be equal, nor that just because a role tends to be the norm that there cannot or should not be exceptions.

And finally, to reiterate the point of the article, these are fictional representations. As a commenter said in one of Alex's articles, just because we see a futuristic space station without wheelchair ramps doesn't mean the developers have anything against the handicapped. So, a video game portrays a chauvinistic lead character or an alien race of women who have Vulcan-style sex. So what? They're fictional characters, not an endorsement of any particular sociocultural norm. [edited by Moderator]

Are ad hominem attacks particularly necessary or useful? I don’t think might I suggest we focus on the article and not the author.

The article brings up something important: Is the portrayal of gender roles in Mass Effect an artistic decision? The obvious argument is that: it’s present in the game, games are art, so therefore the decision to include it was an artistic one; that makes sense.

However for such a decisions to validly be called an “artistic choice” and therefore covered by the concept of freedom of expression, it needs to have been made with active thought by the artists. I’m not convinced that is the case.

Trent Reznor takes times on every element of his music, often obsessively so, he does this because he knows exactly what he wants to say and doesn’t want to include anything that could dilute the impact of his work. In other words he has “control of the message” of his work. Asking that he modify his work to appease some who may be offended is absurd, if for no other reason that causing such people offensive was the purpose of the work and Trent knew exactly what he was doing.

I’m concerned that BioWare lost control of message of Mass Effect, by not giving some of the decisions the thought required, and not paying attention to the indirect messages they were sending.

There are lines in the Codex material that explain away the lack of Turian and Sularian females but these issues are never touched upon anywhere else, it’s as if the lines were added to explain away decisions made for other reasons. This becomes even more likely when you consider the circumstances with the Korgan. Here the concept of gender role and the cultural attitude towards women is very heavily touched upon. Maybe some won’t be a fan of the way Krogan women are portrayed but it is clearly a decision that has been given significant thought and therefore the way it appears is intentional. The same could be said of their handling of the Asari. If BioWare were willing to directly broach the topic of gender roles with two races why is their handling of it so off hand with the others?

The lack of Turian and Sularian females seems much more likely to have been a technical and budgetary decisions and not an artistic one. The key characters in those two races were male (an artistic decisions) so a male character model had to be created for each race and potentially recycled because of time and memory constraints. However because no female characters were specifically needed no female character models were created, a knock on decision the impact of which wasn’t given enough thought. A few lines were added to the supplementary material to justify this decision.

The problem is that in so doing, BioWare lost control of the message. With the Asari and the Krogan the idea of sexual identity and gender roles were explicitly approached, whether you agree with the way they were represented or not it’s clear that such decisions were given thought. What BioWare had to say was clear, if potentially unappealing, and liable to reinforce cultural stereotypes.

With the Turians and Sularians the lack of female characters is obvious, because of the intentional decisions made regarding the gendering of two of the other key races the impression is that the demographic makeup of every race was given careful thought. Therefore we have a representation of the Turians and Sulrians and their cultural attitudes to gender that might not be what BioWare intended, and that is a problem.

Asking BioWare to modify their decisions to appeal to everybody is not something I think we should be doing, but that they give every decision and its potential implications thought is something we should all be encouraging.

Wow, there's a lot to unpack here. I suppose I will start at the top.

First of all, you seem to have some unfortunate misconceptions about what feminism is and what its aims are. Since I don't really have the time nor inclination to try and sum up all of that in a blog comment, here are some resources that explain things more thoroughly and concisely than I could: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/faq-but-men-and-women-are-born-different-isnt-that-obvious/ Also: http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-there-will-be-no-more-gender-essentialist-comments-allowed-on-this-site/ (This is only tangentially related to what you're saying but it may also be helpful in understanding why women think feminism is important: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/feminism-friday-on-tuesday-echidnes-need-for-feminism-series/) The FAQ pages over at FeministGamers.com and TheHathorLegacy.com may also be helpful.

Please note that feminism strives for equality between the sexes; equal treatment is not necessarily the exact same treatment.

But it's her attack on the creative freedom of game developers that I find most worrisome.

This is pretty funny. You're giving me way too much credit. How is what I say after the game has been made and released constricting a game developer's creative freedom? I'm actually really surprised to see this sort of anti-criticism argument pop up on a site called Game Critics. Are you constricting Hideo Kojima's creative freedom when you say the cutscenes in MGS4 are too long and overblown? GameCritics.com strives to improve games as a medium through intelligent criticism; I strive to improve the representation of women in games through intelligent criticism. It's the same thing, one is just more specific.

Also, what Alex H said. There are plenty of developers who would LOVE to have a non-stereotyped black protagonist, or more gay characters, or strong women, but they are held up by execs who harbor misguided assumptions about what people will or won't buy, who refuse to take risks. Look at EA DICE, and how proud they were to forward women's representation in games with Faith from Mirror's Edge (it didn't sell all that well, but this was more likely because it is short and got poor reviews than what the protagonist looked like). I'm actually arguing for MORE creative freedom.

The publishers are the ones with the power here, not me.

Does that mean that in any game where there is sexual choice, that 5% of the characters should be gay?

Honestly, this is the part of the post that made me the angriest. LGBT people are a minority; that means their representation in games does not matter? Developers shouldn't take LGBT people into consideration when creating a game world? Games should only have straight relationships? More people are straight, so straight relationships are more important or valid than gay ones? (And really, even if it is only 5%, that is still millions of people.) Honestly, basic LGBT inclusion is pretty easy for the most part--don't make gay jokes, and let the player choose their character's sexuality. Most of the suggestions out there for solving the issues of gender, race, and homophobia in games involves giving players MORE options, not less.

The problem with games is not any individual game that I criticize. Alpha Protocol is not the cause of all of the game industry's (society's?) ills. The problem is that Alpha Protocol is part of a pattern. Every game with a white straight male protagonist (which is the vast majority of them) is part of a pattern. Having a straight white male protagonist is not a bad thing in and of itself; but because the vast majority of games have a straight white male protagonist, or have all white characters, or only have gay characters that are flamboyant stereotypes, or have only women that are helpless and hypersexualized, games as a medium exclude women, people of color, and/or LGBT people. And we should care about that because we are all human beings of equal worth, and we should all be able to play games in which we are represented fairly.

If people don't point out this imbalance and make people aware of these patterns (by pointing out examples!), nothing will ever change, and video games will continue to cater to only a niche, insular, homogeneous audience. How can games become a truly meaningful art form if it excludes most of the world?

I fully agree with your comments; I don't mean to suggest that any design component of any game is purely artistic. Pragmatically, we know that not to be the case. As with virtually any artistic medium, there are time, marketing and budgetary constraints that influence the final outcome. My argument is that designers, to the extent that they do have artistic control, are under no ethical obligation to make their fictional characters politically correct.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

They're fictional characters, not an endorsement of any particular sociocultural norm. Get over it.

Sure, it's fiction. And what do we do with fiction, especially good fiction? We engage in critical discussion of what it has to say, and how it says it. You can't have it both ways of appealing to games as art and fiction, and then crying foul when people disagree with it. If you want for your games to be treated as art, you need to accept the same sort of conversations that we've been having with art for a few centuries now.

Perhaps its because I come from an arts family and work with the arts, but criticism is a fairly high form of flattery. Works that are rubbish get dumped into the waste paper file without comment.

But anyone who actually believes that men and women are equally adept at all the exact same things needs to take a course in evolutionary psychology and/or primatology.

You mean, the same evolutionary psychology whose most prominent advocates writes, "If my genes don't like it, they can go jump in a lake." (Pinker, How the Mind Works) Or the primatology that has noted the existence of culture among our closest ancestors? Leaving aside the methodological problems that make the dominant evolutionary psychology hypothesis a pseudoscience, evolutionary psychologists don't claim anything close to social roles being "biologically hardwired." The best they can do is simply restate what cognitive and developmental psychologists already knew: human behavior involves complex interactions between genetic predispositions and the environment.

But then again, nature v. nurture has usually been more about politics than science.

Your position is called "scientism." It's making claims about the social world by limiting knowledge to scientific method. The criticism is over your position. It's not because you have a beef with one particular feminists' views.

Besides the scientism, (which, argumentatively, isn't connected to your position on artistic representation), I don't think you get how much what we do (make art, argue, do politics) informs the social world. Sure, the extent to which evolutionary history informs behavior is arguable. But whatever your position is on natural gender roles, it's hard to argue against the complexity of the social world. It wouldn't be complex if we didn't, to some extent, co-create it. We co-create the (social) world by making certain things mean certain things. Given that, hell yes, some folks are going to want other folks to be as responsible as possible in that co-creation.

The position you endorse ignores the constitutive role of the human being. If you didn't learn that somewhere along the way, yeah, I'd call that a narrow education. I don't mean that in a "haha you fool" kind of a way. That's not how education works. That was my point about rhetoric. That's why this kind of conversation is cool. We're negotiating things and, in the process, learning from each other.

And I'm not going to do a quick search on Google Scholar so that I can "look up" a theory. It ain't how this lady does research.

You're welcome to give me specific examples of misconceptions I have. I'm not oblivious to or ignorant of either women's studies or the feminist movement.

I fully agree.

I didn't say it was constricting their creative freedom, nor that their decisions should not be criticized. In fact, I quite clearly stated the opposite. The distinction that I made was between discussing and criticizing, and the assertion that developers are under an ethical obligation to present homogeneous treatment of the sexes.

As I replied previously, I'm well aware that, as with virtually any artistic medium, there are extraneous factors that shape the outcome of the game which have little to do with artistic expression. But my point is intended to be relevant strictly to the extent that developers DO have artistic freedom.

Again, I quite clearly stated the opposite of this: "I would certainly welcome and applaud more games that portrayed women in less traditional roles and/or explored more complex themes of sexuality". The difference, and my central point, is that I do not believe developers are obliged to do so. These are their works of fiction, and they can shape them however they want.

I agree that we are all human beings of equal worth, but I do not agree that we are owed "fair" artistic representation by anyone.

On this, I wholly agree, and again, I more than welcome and encourage developers to break the mold. But I don't think we are owed anything, nor that they are under any artistic obligation to represent anyone or anything in any particular way, for better or for worse. To suggest that creativity should be constrained and molded to fit an idealized worldview is to negate the very value of artistic expression in the first place.

I'm struggling to find how the linked article implies an ethical obligation. It does make a strong case that Mass Effect isn't particularly outstanding science fiction by applying human standards to non-human species. Since those species are not human and probably not primates (who don't all have the same social class structures), evolutionary arguments for gender roles don't apply.

To name drop a few more, not only Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin have addressed the view that alien gender might be, well, alien, but also see District 9, Kurt Vonnegut, Stanislaw Lem, and Piers Anthony off the top of my head.

Do enlighten me on what other methodology exists by which we may validate or invalidate claims about reality.

I'm not suggesting that just because there are hardwired behavioral tendencies that they must manifest themselves in any particular way. We are all hardwired to learn language, but that doesn't mean we'll all speak French. Of course our culture influences how our evolutionary impulses manifest themselves. That's the difference between evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.

Your loss.

I do appreciate the conversation though. But, I have to duck out, probably for good... I'm going to LA for the week. I look forward to reading people's responses when I get back.

The concern I have is that too many developers don't give their design decisions the thought required, and so fail to include fair representations of minority groups for no other reasons than ignorance.

I doubt anybody thinks BioWare are being malicious, but they are reinforcing cultural stereotypes through acts of ignorance. If something is included in a work of art then it is relevant to the message so including something so potentially problematic through simply ignorance indicates a supreme failure as an artist.

I personally have no problem with the option of playing the protagonist of Alpha Protocol as a misogynist it is after all a "role playing game" but I would expect such an attitude to be commented on and engaged with by other characters; I would expect some to outright despise me, and some to encourage me. That would imply Obsidian really though think about the impact of their decision and weren’t just resorting to lazy clichés and stereotypes with little thought to the offense caused.

Furthermore in a role playing game, I am supposed to be in control of the behaviour and attitudes of the protagonist so not allowing me the option to play a LGBT character seems unnecessarily restrictive.

So, you're saying game developers have a right to be racist and sexist and homophobic if they want to? Sure, I guess so. That doesn't mean I'm not going to criticize them, though. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, so I'm not sure why you think I'm squashing creative freedom. (I totally agree with CB's comments.)

I don't find racism/etc. to be especially creative or worth defending. Works that explore or subvert these issues are much more creative and interesting.

Do enlighten me on what other methodology exists by which we may validate or invalidate claims about reality.

However, evolutionary psychology has some serious methodological flaws that render its basic hypothesis--that human behavior can be explained in terms of evolutionary pressures of the paleolithic and neolithic periods--untestable and therefore a pseudoscience:

1) The relative lack of evidence for neolithic and paleolithic behavior. We can say a lot about the artifacts our ancestors left behind, but very little about the social contexts in which they were used.

2) The complete absence of living relatives with a probable common ancestor during that period.

3) Trouble quantifying the effects of genetic factors vs. environmental factors. Until you can quantify those genetic factors, you can't construct a hypothesis about what kinds of selective pressure might influence those factors.

4) The inability to identify genetic markers for many behaviors addressed by evolutionary psychology. No markers, no genetic clock and no molecule-level hypotheses.

The best evolutionary psychology has to offer is something we already knew--human beings tend to act in predictable ways. At worst, it offers mythological "just so stories" with a thin facade of scientific plausibility.

While I agree with the idea that we aren't "owed" anything by developers, I also recognize it as a pointless statement to make.

It's irritating because I see it pop up constantly in contexts much less important than sexism (for example, people complaining about the lack of local co-op play in a highly anticipated title) and while it is a basically true statement, it serves no purpose in any discussion, other than to end it. It's anti-debate.

With that said, I still like very much that Mike wrote this article, and I enjoy the conversation that followed. Sites that march in lock step are a dime a dozen, but seeing spirited debate between contributors is something I'd like to see more of.

While I haven't read all of Piers Anthony, his name stuck out to me in this list, mainly because from what I HAVE read, his works are full of bare-faced sexism.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! Did you not go to a single link she put right in fron t of your face?

How about the experience of people who have to live with bigoted crap like that day in and day out and are out of patience trying to educate people who are willfully blind to it?

Not when you open your post with such passive aggressive language as, "We have a new writer in town, a self-proclaimed feminist by the name of Alex Raymond..>" (Emphasis mine.)

Really, what the hell was wrong with just saying, "We have a new writer in town, Alex Raymond, who has been looking at issues of feminism and gender representation..."

Two (and a half) primary problems with this discussion so far. Let's start with the half... the ad hominem attacks. As logical fallacies, not only are they worthless, but also they are an admission of defeat. In any intellectual endeavor, the careful consideration and logical rebuttal of opposing points are the reputable methods of discussion. Name-calling (like "homophobe" or "sexist") fails on two fronts: it is neither logical nor intellectually engaged. As logical fallacies, ad hominems are disqualified from rational discussion. In addition, they are the absence of careful or critical thought. They are snap categorizations that enable the avoidance of careful consideration; they attempt to ignore the substance of an idea by labeling it with an offensive tag. The moment you throw around your ad hominems, you have proven that you are incapable of successfully rebutting the argument (to any rational observer).

As for the meat of the discussion, all of the investigation of the "transactional" nature of sex in games carelessly avoids the "transactional" nature of game design, specifically the trade-offs necessary to complete the most important transaction... the sale. Inclusion may be a noble goal, but it is also a costly one. You can identify any group of people's particular tastes (it does not have to be based on sexual roles) and quantify it based on cost to satisfy them.

Let's say we are talking about the 5% of the gaming community who would enjoy the ability to change the costume of their in-game avatars. What revenue increase would be garnered from including this ability, and at what cost in resources, time, etc.? If only a small number of game players would be interested in male homosexual encounters, how much would it cost in time and money (cut-scenes, art, programming, etc.) to make this possible? It is very easy to desire game changes or expanded options when you aren’t responsible for the resource allocation to make it possible. It is narcissistic to value your own particular preferences to the point of dismissing the cost of them to others. Show that your particular interests are shared enough to be profitable, and you’ll have no trouble convincing developers to include them. Games aren’t made for expression… they are made to sell.

Lastly, to the folks who only seem to find artistic value in attacking the social/political issues they disagree with, get over yourself. Art has always been at its best when it challenges prevailing wisdom and convention. Most artists have found their muse (and greatest accomplishments) in subtly attacking the ideas that people are least comfortably seeing attack. Whether its Bram Stoker subverting Victorian morality, or Oscar Wilde attacking heteronormative relationships, great artists attack what makes us most comfortable. So why not do the same today?

What could an artist challenge today? What ideas would make modern people squirm the most? What could someone not challenge openly in society without incurring the wrath of the community of ideas? Why, tolerance and inclusion… of course! Name a single media outlet that would stand for an intolerant or exclusive program or work of art? Could a TV show be made like that? Could a college professor proclaim such ideas from his podium? Could a book be published trumpeting such subversion? Could a politician be elected nationally that rejected these ideas?

So, for all the budding artists out there, your path to greatness awaits. All you need is the courage to take on the prevailing opinion of the masses. A little exclusiveness and intolerance, and you can be on your way. Imagine the controversy and press coverage (especially considering the vitriol this otherwise insignificant discussion has engendered)! You’ll definitely be famous…hehehehehehe….

At last reckoning females make up 50.9% of the population of the world. Taken on that basis any arguments about proportional representation simply don't stand, women are not proportionally represented in games.

Certain decisions were made during the development of Mass Effect that prioritised other things over the creation multiple genders of character models for the alien races. I understand that tradeoffs need to be made in terms of developer resources and memory constraints, but that non-male character models for alien races was high enough on the list to get cut seems patently absurd.

“Name a single media outlet that would stand for an intolerant or exclusive program or work of art?”
Fox.

Unfortunately, proportions of people don't matter; proportions of potential game buyers do. There are far more men who play games (especially action games like Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol) than women. Show me any evidence that more women in video games will increase female purchases...

For a game with a larger proportion of potential female gamers (based on purchasing statistics, that would be games like The Sims or Animal Crossing), a developer might very well consider the cost-benefit analysis of more female characters or certain styles of presentation. Which is my whole point. The lady in question is arguing that a consideration other than cost-benefit be elevated to primacy in game design. Which is a persuasive argument, if she is supplying the development capital for the game. Otherwise, she's simply demanding that other people use their resources to satisfy her intellectual fetishes. See my earlier comment about narcissism...

How many ordinary people have their own superhero comic books? Last I checked, superheroes are wildly overrepresented in comic books. Probably because that is the point. If you want proportional representation, might I suggest any of an infinite number of real life activities that will reflect the actual representation of people. But, should you decide to do something ... fun... something having to do with fantasy or make-believe, you might want to accentuate those things you find entertaining. Some people might find dedicated accuracy to be paramount in their entertainment (there are even games, like RPGs, that require you to eat periodically, perform mundane activities, etc.), but that never has been very popular. So developers cater to the unrealistic preferences of their intended audience (just like networks cater to their intended audience... like leftwing CNN or rightwing Fox). Who'd 'a thunk it?

The problem with that mentality and it's not just in video games, but comics that you brought up and I'm sure other forms of media is that idea that only these people buy these video games or comics so we will cater to that demographic. This idea creates a self fulfilling phraphacy. What is happening now in video games with the argument of inclusiveness, from an economic and demographic standpoint, is an effort to stop what happened to the American comic industry, that for one reason and another it was left with only a small segment of the its potential consumer base and to survive had to pader and create works exclusively for them to the exclusion of others.

Comics are not inherently an exclusive medium. All demographics read the comics in the newspaper, which lends credence that people aren't adverse to the medium, but to the perception that was perpetuated because of one crazy psycologist, congressional hearings, AND the self fulfilling identity that they are only about men in tights. Diversity could have worked in that medium because it did in both Europe and Japan where the earliest creators of modern comics created a diverse set of styles and genres for many different type of creators to work off them.

Video games are starting to diversify, but the potential exclusion of half the population because it is seen as a "man's genre" is ignorant and just plain stupid. In all honesty people marketing people only know facts based off of what has already come out. They are not the people to go to understand demographics. You go to what people want out of their medium.

And as the group that grew up with video games gets older we are going to see these 20 and 30 year olds tired with teenage power fantasys. They will want depth and exploration of of the human condition and all that other stuff that has to do with why things happen. This is a big generality as in GENERALITY, but that is exactly what women want out of their media as well. They want to know and understand the relationships between people. Know the gender roles of races and how that interrelates between their own race and others, I do think that would be a draw for women. Of course it will never be marketed as such.

You can talk about the theory of "what people want" (or will want in the future). But that theory is simply that... it has no basis in reality. Reality means taking the money you have and investing it in a video game that displays the qualities you so desire, then living with the success or failure. Which has been my point all along. When the lady who began this argument (with her article on feminine roles) invests her money in a successful game, then I will admit that her point of view is relevant. But it is very easy to pontificate from afar, with no "skin" in the game. Most people have very strong opinions about issues that they think they know something about... but those opinions are nothing more than self-serving whining until you put your own time/effort/resources into the process. Tearing down is easy; building is hard. Many posters here (including the lady in question) are all to ready to criticize (i.e. tear down), but I've yet to see them create and market a successful game embodying their principles. Because talk is much cheaper. I'll trust that the people who actually have the financial stake in the games know what they are doing. If not, they'll face the economic consequences.

As for your "self-fulfilling prophecy" argument, it is predicated on knowing how things "should be" or "would be" if conditions were different. Well, they aren't. The reality is that our media/comics/etc. developed the way they did, and any protestations otherwise is mere conjecture (or the ludicrous supposition that American and Japanese cultures are so similar that we can analogize across them). Show me the real and confirmed... because keyboard-warrior's theories and wishes are very cheap...

Like to thank OP for his post mainly because it opens the discourse further. Not to say that I agree with most of his statements, however, but I value his opinion all the same.

On a different note, I find it fascinating that on a site that is specifically set up to critique games and, I quote, "To elevate the quality, culture and perception of video games as contemporary arts and entertainment through game criticism and community development" that reactionary reasoning would be invoked. I mean, if the site is primary set up to elevate games from their (generally) negative reputation in mainstream culture, wouldn't it be obvious to point out some of the common tropes that prevent it from gaining a more positive perception?

Of course, yes, I know that probably 95% of video games have no intention of being anything more than instant gratification and titillation just like the majority of movies being released. I have no qualms nor illusions about that. If the gaming community wants to be wrapped in its own hubris, elevating the lowest common denominator, fine. But then, it has no right to call itself or what it does a "contemporary art" because, besides using a modern technological medium and shiny graphics, what it seeks to do is in no way to challenge or stimulate the status quo. At least, that is what I view and define as "art"--things that elevate and illuminate aspects of humanity.

To bring my thoughts into this discussions' context, I agree with the OP--I don't think that anyone (which includes gaming developers) have any obligation to anyone. As gaming works on a capitalistic model, I don't see anything wrong with catering to the traditional consumers of gaming (white, middle class males) mainly because money is guaranteed there. However, if the developers seek to create something that is "art," reaches a larger target audience, or even perhaps develop something that is more than just mindless self-satisfaction, then they have to reach a higher plain of awareness.

In other words, if you wonder why the gaming is such a niche community, why there are less females in this area, then just take a look at the body of work that is produced by it. I assure you, no self-respecting female is going to support something that alienates, shuns, or oversimplifies her. Therefore, simply, if you want to increase the revenue and the respect of the masses, I think it's fair to say that you increase the work to include the other half of the potential audience. On that note, including better representation of female/minorities =/= making a game less popular.

Anyway, this is getting too long so I'll to be more brief. I don't think anyone is saying that Mass Effect (or by extension, Bioware) is a bad or a sexist game (company). Quite opposite of that--it's a GREAT one, one of the finest in the industry and totally deserves its loyal fanbase. By the largest extent, it got that fanbase for their wonderful games that, in a mostly conservative industry, do try to include minority representation and do it in an intelligent, mature way. The fact that they try to include minorities makes them just as respectable as their famously strong plot and charaterization (and thus that's why they have a larger female audience than most video games can claim). However, that is isn't to say that they could do better and be more aware of their subconscious social norms.

I mean, if you're going to have something--you have to do it right. I see this area being no different than from improving gaming mechanics or commenting on flaws in the system though I admit because this topic is rather personal to many of us and talking about social change, it gets much more heated than a debate on, say, auto-targeting or whatever.

First off, if you are a creator in anything, books, paintings, movies, comics, video games then part of the difficulty of creating something is dealing with critics getting their hands on it and not knowing what will become of it when they're done. It is the critic's job to "tear down" as you say where and when they see fit, even if it is only one aspect of a work. Conversly it is also their job to praise games in aspects they do well. The original poster, Alex Raymond, chose to criticise a point that she, as a critic, felt lacking and explain why. That is the relationship between creator and critic.

My self-fulfilling prophecy has nothing to do with individual works, but in regards to the perception of medium overall. It take individual works to undo such a perception. Comics are doing their best to get out of it, but are struggling to move beyond men in tights and those things for kids or dumb things in newspapers. What I said about Japan was the diversity of genre and styles thanks to Osamu Tezuka. The comming generations of creators had many different styles that appealed to many different types of people in the mediuem. A diverse medium at its beginning fosters diversity in the comming generations. To create works that would appeal to a more diverse set of potential creators is a healthy enviornment for a medium and the industry based on it. To beleive otherwise is ignorance. Video games are at their crossroads where the Wii and casual gaming has given it the notice and potential to be accepted and now the industy has to foster as much diversity as possible if they wish to keep that door open and work to even bigger and better things.

You're making a pretty broad assumption that you can make games "more inclusive" by making them conform to specific ideologies. No matter how correct your ideology is, there's a good chance that someone, somewhere disagrees with you, and would feel alienated by it.

I strongly believe that creative control takes precedence over social ethics, and do not expect the games to be the model upon which society should be run. I also don't expect them to conform to my ideas on religion, morality, work ethic, or any of a dozen other important criteria.

To put it another way, I don't get mad at Grand Theft Auto (or its creators) for being a violent mess anymore than I get mad at Animal Crossing for being a somewhat consumerist driven dollhouse with no plot or meaningful story. They're just games.

While there are cases of sexism (e.g. Age of Conan, and Elder Scrolls -which both changed your stats based on your sex) in video games, I refuse to believe that all instances where women (or men, for that matter) show up have to be representative of the ideals of ANY ideology.

Especially since you and I might disagree on exactly what's important.

I said nothing about games conforming to specific ideologies to be more inclusive. I said making games be more broad in their styles and subject matter, not just a specific titles, but as a whole, will make people feel like they are more welcome and not missing something. Video games have a bad rap as one of the pillar of nerd culture and is generally a boys club only. The games themselves have catered to the sterotype further fueling it.

It has less to do with any specific social ideology and more to do with commen sense in how a medium thrives and is perccieved.

Additionally a point I want to make on criticism. A critic has to look at three things about a work. 1 - What was the creator's intention? 2 - Did they succede and to what degree? 3 - Was it worth doing? Three has already been answered by the fact we are still talking about it. But as for one and two. Mass Effect was trying to portray a galaxy full of varied and alien worlds on a political stage that humanity has just stepped onto. It succeded in part, but failed in regard to varied gender relations and portrayals across the specicies. That is what the critics is about. Alex pointed this out in her specific criticism of Mass Effect. In her critic of broader social criticism of gamer culture and games that perpetuate it she rendered an opinion and backed up her arguements.

I just wanted to say, excellent article Matt.

Are we forgetting that video games are still one or more persons vision? ie. Cliff Blizinski. Since when does art have to be PC? Most of these comments are off the chart. Basically im hearing that there is an obligation artists have with gender roles. Wrong! That's no different than saying that author's, musicians and directors are all morally obligated in the same way. I challenge anyone who says differently.

Its pretty ridiculous how out of proportion this discussion got and how the topic of the article was twisted and spun. Video games are still art regardless of the story, content etc. Its a vision, there are no requirements nor moral obligations...

Just three points

1. There are inherent differences between man and women. None of these differences provide reason to deny women (or men) the same rights as the other sex. The articles you point to seem to live in a fantasy world where differences between children are forced upon them by 'conditioning'. Anyone who's worked with children can tell you this is simply not true. Of course now you'll vaguely allude to articles and studies. If they're of the same calibre of the links you've provided here. Please don't bother.

2. The original author in no way says that just because gays only make up 5% people, we should't bother putting them in games. He simply says that game developers shouldn't be under pressure to look at demographics before they develop their characters. What if they wanted to make a game with only gay characters, would they not be allowed to do that since that would exclude the 95% (or whatever the percentage is) non-gays? The fact that you got so angry about something you clearly misread is very telling here, and I think why this entire discussion is ultimately useless.

Finally, yes there are a lot of stereotypical white heterosexual male character driven games out there. Just as the mainstream movies coming out tend to cater to the same stereotypes, but there are lot's of games out there that have a different perspective. None of the developers of these games we're forced to equally distribute their characters among demographics

The feminists here are forgetting one key thing about this argument, which is that no one is going to pay for a game that explores gender roles.

I loved Mass Effect because it meant that for a short time I could pretend to be a hotshot space commando - something that I will never do in my wage slave life.

Im not interested in how male and female aliens are portrayed and I dont expect a games company to start forcing that rubbish down my throat. If they did, Id stop buying their games because that sh*t aint fun.

As for the Oblivion stat changes being sexist - rubbish. Most women are unable to bench press the same weights as most men, so the change in STR makes perfect sense to me...

Is altering stats for different genders really sexism? Seems more honest than anything to me.

Okay I thought this was a pretty good read. It was entertaining enough, and the harsh defensiveness which the author is using to defend his views just adds to the spectacle.

First off, you can't separate the article from the author. The article is the author, its an expression of his thoughts. If the author wrote an article about how he thinks Neo Nazism is great and we should burn people in concentration camps, then you wouldn't be saying "lets separate the author and the article and be nice m'kay". That's an extreme example, but you get my point.

Now, without any further delay, onto the author; Mike your article and subsequent responses allude to you having some sort of mindless defensiveness about this issue. I really think that inside, you probably think women should just 'stop complaining already', because that's how you come off. After writing your article, may be you should have taken a step backwards, looked at what was being written here, and actually taken it in, because a lot of people have made a lot of good points pointing out the articles failings.

Speaking of the article, there is one point you make which I think is so insanely wrong that it just has to be dealt with. You you seriously think that any form of entertainment, be it games or film, DOESN'T have some sort of duty to reflect what is morally correct? Forget about Mass Effect, forget about insect analogies, they are irrelevant. I am talking about the big picture here. Let's go back to my first extreme example, if you played a game which presented and glorified hardcore racism as something cool would you defend it as art?

The fact of the matter is, video games in general get away with some of the most sexist crap across all forms of modern entertainment. Sometimes it is subtle sometimes it is not. Look at Bayonetta, she can be the hero but she has to look like a whore. What about Dead Or Alive?

Yes there are differences between men and women, biologically, physiologically, socially we are not 100% identical. But the divide between us is not nearly as large as what modern games portray it to be. I think many women gamers would like that to change, and I for one agree with them.

To your first point this is still artistic expression, and usually it's validated when it makes some kind of connection to real life i.e. anthropomorphic characters so i disagree that it is not valid. It's completely valid.

And to your second point, yes it's true a larger market appeal is great for any company, however we're talking about demographics, period. Males from 16-32 are the demographic for most game developers because males 16-32 are the ones not only playing but creating games. This all goes down to the Wii argument, making things more accessible or casual over hardcore game mechanics is a parallel to gender bias or sexism in games. If a game developer wants to sell to that market they are more then welcome to do so. However tried and true market testing yields specific game themes that aren't as risky as creating something new or different. Sometimes it pays off (i.e. the Wii) sometimes it falls flat on it's face. But as production cost for games increases you also get a tremendous growth in company's not wanting to take the risk.

I don't understand why asking for better representation is equivalent to creating a boring game. It's not like I'm asking for a game that bludgeons you to death with social politics or is existentially a course in Feminism/Women's Studies 101. Rather, it's a game that presents or embodies some of these ideas in a way that it's just another fact of the world. Going back to Mass Effect, the Citadel Homecoming quest I think was a good example where the gender roles are subverted--it's the husband who wants his (soldier) wife's body. You accept it as a fact and move on. Having the traditional role switched doesn't diminish anything about the game nor is it shoving anything down anyone's throat.

And like, I love Mass Effect for the same reason you did--for a change I got to play as "hotshot space commando" who could represent me, a woman. RPGs that allowed that are and have an interesting plot are far and few. I don't think I'm wrong to say that games are reflective and can act as fulfillment to the player.

In that case, I fail to see why getting a decent portrayal of alien races that are representative of not just mainstream cultural and social norms is "rubbish." I just want to play the same game as you do and enjoy it for the same reasons. However, when you have these "coincidences" (i.e. lack of female aliens, forcing you into situations where you have to "save" all three of your female party members) they will greatly diminish my enjoyment. I mean, if you were in my shoes and the situation was reversed, I think it would annoy you just the same because it's jarring to see yourself being represented in such a way. So, on the contrary, gender portrayal is very fun when it is presented in a way that is inoffensive to everyone. I'm talking idealistically. I don't think this will happen anytime soon, but the purpose of discussion and critique is to point out faults in hopes that they will one day be changed.

As for your last comment, I never really understood the logic behind the whole "men are stronger than most women in real life so ALL men will be stronger than ALL the women in the video games." I mean, that's not going into the whole idea that you're playing a hero, who, by definition, is beyond gender and beyond most realism. On that note, one doesn't go for realism in video games because that's boring--the idea is verisimilitude, the appearance of realism. To construct something that will allow the player to suspend his or her belief to increase maximum enjoyment one gets from the game. If that thing restricts how I want to play the game, than it's a deterrent and a senseless one no matter how "logical" it pretends its reasoning to be.

While the more sensible, less reductionist strands within evolutionary psychology can frequently be a useful corrective to theoretical overreach within feminist studies, it's worth noting that Dolittle introduces the evolutionary perspective in a curiously generalized manner, without discussing the majority of Raymond's specific criticisms of how women are depicted in Mass Effect (with the exception of a very quick dismissal of Raymond's comments on the Rachni as well as of the commodity model discussed in an earlier article).

Now, as Dolittle himself points out it's perfectly true that these are less specifically game-related questions than the ethical obligation issue he then focuses the remainder of his post on. At the same time, it's nonetheless useful to note that a more detailed rebuttal of Raymond's main arguments would effectively have required him to engage in a potentially difficult defense of claims about purported female innocence, sexuality, emotional intelligence, moral psychology etc. - as those are the concrete issues the orginal article actually deals with. In other words, it's one thing to defend biological sex differences in the abstract, but it's quite another to defend (for example) the 100 year old Liara's creepy naivete and explain why it can't be meaningfully associated with a common and arguably infantilazing view of the psychological make-up of women. And while it's also true that Raymond herself approvingly refers to the equally generalizing feminist theory of gender essentialism, the specific instances of gender stereotyping she discusses are blatant enough that one need not necessarily buy into the complete anti-essentialist package to acknowledge that the depiction of women in Mass Effect - while in some ways noticeably better than in many other games - could still have been significantly less clichéd.

As for the question of whether it's not just boring but also downright unethical to rely on stereotypical representations of men and women when developing characters in a video game, I guess this hinges in large part on what effect video games really have on its players in shaping their attitudes. From what little experience I have of media studies I would personally guess that video games and popular culture at least have some impact on how we view the world around us. Thus, in so far as a specific video game include (and, crucially, leave unchallenged) somewhat stereotypical representations of women, the developers in question could be said to have behaved slightly unethically while designing/writing the game as they did. I see no reason why simply pointing this out (or, even better, making more positive statements about what we as consumers would instead like to see in future games from the same developer) could possibly impinge on anyone's creative freedom. After all, it's not like Raymond or anyone else is seriously suggesting that a little bit of everday sexism here and there (as depressing as it may be) is enough to warrant a boycott or anything similarily severe...

All though the '70s, '80s, and most of the '90s, games were pretty much gender-neutral. While they usually had a male protagonist (if any) the protagonist was barely recognizable as such. Exploitation of female characters didn't occur until the graphics occurred to do so.

And throughout that time, the game market was almost exclusively male.

In the face of that fact, game developers are obviously going to notice that making action games targeted exclusively at a male audience really doesn't hurt them at all.

I mean, you can include boobs and get lots of boys and no girls, or include no boobs and get slightly less boys... and still no girls.

Women complaining about how the games industry ignores them is roughly equivalent to straight men who complain about how the makeup industry ignores them. Any men who buy makeup are part of a fringe market that is completely orthogonal to the market that they're functionally in a completely separate line of business - and a rather small one at that.

Look at black folks - the games industry realized there weren't many black characters in games, and noticed that black folks were a real market that actually had players... and guess what? They started making games with black protagonists. Sure, a lot of them were the functional equivalent of blacksploitation flicks, but gamers are buying them! You can't argue that the various 50Cent games are aimed at a white audience.

You want

Additionally a point I want to make on criticism. A critic has to look at three things about a work. 1 - What was the creator's intention? 2 - Did they succede and to what degree? 3 - Was it worth doing?

Actually, many forms of art criticism have largely abandoned examination of the artist's "intention" because it's a really problematic concept, especially when applied to collaborative works. Another big problem is that artist biographies are themselves loaded with bias, so we often risk muddying the waters with the intentions of the biographers who write about the artist.

My previous mention of Piers Anthony wasn't to hold him as a particularly progressive author in terms of sexism, but as an imaginative author who recognized that alien species would probably have sexualities and genders that are unrecognizable to human beings. Another example along those lines is Alan Moore.

And throughout that time, the game market was almost exclusively male.

Except that industry reports put women at around 38% of the market. I don't know about you, but that's certainly worth more than a few million.

I understand there are a wide ranging ideas on how to critique art and this is just one of them. True it is a problematice set of questions when dealing with what the work means to an individual and how it effects them. And even more problematic if critiquing a critique. But when it comes to structural form and content of a work I think it is still a valid yardstick. This is the wrong place to argue the intricate details of such theory, but I brought that up to signify a point about Mass Effect.

In this day and age of online marketing and video games sites, it is easy to find what creators were trying for with their games. Nown of it focues on meaning or anything else that critics delve into, but it gives a general sense of what their basic goals were. I think that is important, especially when a criticism of a game comes up because they failed to reach one of those goals. They wanted a varied and diverse galaxy, on this front they fell short.

Mike. Sorry to see you get blasted so hard for offering your opinion. I read a bunch of stuff that I agree with and disagree with. I would read it all but im technically supposed to be working and just dont have time for all the comments, however, I would like to offer my input as someone that plays a lot of video games.

A) It's a game and its fiction. (thats PERIOD!!!)
B) Im a LOT more likely to play and enjoy a video game that contains women who are sexually appealing than one that has a bunch of women (or men for that matter) who are not physically attractive. You could put these things in the game to attract that crowd, but I would say that you might lose alot of the mainstream crowd by doing so.
C) ITS A F***ING GAME!

I find it very disheartening when things like feminism/machoism are brought up. The reason being is that where women think the world is out to get them and they have to fight for equal rights there is an equal pull against males for the same reason.

My personal opinion is that white middle class males have been gagged on all this hatred from minorities and such at an alarming rate. As of late, many TV shows portray the male as a dumb, couch-sitting, lazy man who cannot make his own decisions without the help of his independent, successful, beautiful wife. The reasons that one would stay in that relationship that is completely unequal is beyond me but I digress. So what would feminists say to shows of that nature that portray men in such a negative light? Is it neccessary for years of oppression by dictators and cultures of yesteryear or is it something that needs to be addressed in a similar fashion as the plight of women?

I'd also like to state that I do agree with the basic belief of equal work/equal pay, not restricting someone's freedoms or pursuit of happiness. I do however have a problem with equality --> superiority. In general, there is a hard time to create equality in a society. One group of people want to hold power over another. This is basic human/animal conditioning. Survival of the fittest and competition in the species. You can't take the nature out of humans. So that being said, why is it alright to have days and holidays for minorities yet if a white male has one it's racist, sexist or both? That doesn't seem equal to me at its face. Hell I read an article out of Canada where two minorities (Hispanics and blacks) were seeking to make Hispanic only High Schools and Black only High Schools. If a white man was behind this it would be segregation and racist. Yet since blacks and Hispanics pushed for this it is not?

As for video games, the point of having a LGBT based game seems a little moot. Not that it couldn't or shouldn't be done but you're alienating a larger portion of the populous that plays for a small niche market. Currently there are games for anyone's fancy (i.e. rape game released recently that rewards you for more violent rapes). Now I don't think that is appropriate and would not play the game personally. However, there is a niche for that type game since some people will play it. However, in the realm of computer games and multiplayer in general, the more people you have purchasing the game the larger your profits and target audience.

I am all for shaking up the status quo but to do so to prove a point and to alienate a large fan base in my honest opinion will not serve any purpose other than to state that a game of that nature was made. Plus games in the past have taken women out of traditional roles (i.e. Metroid, Resident Evil). Just because certain games hold true to traditional roles of men and women doesn't negate that other games have attempted to blur the lines.

As a side note though on the ants/sentient ant aliens and women and such. Biologically it is physically impossible for a man to give birth to offspring. We have no area to house a fetus, no glands to provide sustenance and the physical pain of child birth (if it was possible) would kill a man. So just because you don't like gender roles doesn't mean that nature hasn't set up specialized equipment for each gender to possess that makes child-birth happen (and happen successfully). Now the role of subservient wife or subservient husband isn't right either (should be equal work from a relationship standpoint) however both men and women should be willing to compromise to provide the needs of the other. If that cannot be done then equality is only an illusion and we are worse off than I have imagined.

From hence forth, we will banning the use of the phrase "Get over it". Any mention of it will result in the comment being deleted.

The article is very defensive, as others have touched on. I understand that you want artistic freedom to be protected and that we as game developers need to have ultimate creative freedom free of ethics, but that's not actually the case at most companies. We are making art within a corporation and profits have to be considered. Even if profit is in no way a consideration - these games are interactive. Interactive entertainment needs to take it's audience into account, and yes, has an ethical responsibility to at least consider making their game represent people of all genders and races. This doesn't mean games can't be fun or have characters that engage in stereotypes - this means we as developers just have to think about not reinforcing alienating concepts. Letting other people in the club will not ruin it for the people who are already there.

Also, you imply that Alex is trying to take away our creative freedom. As far as I can tell from the articles you've linked, she's bringing up points of discussion. Even if I don't agree with her at times, I still value the criticisms as a basis for thinking about these things.

"Of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online. Sixty-four percent of those online gamers are female, according to results of the survey, released by Nielsen Entertainment."

So, women are the majority of people who play games online, in addition to being nearly equal to men offline. For the latest offline numbers it ranges from 40-42% of gamers are women.

Check out "Gender Inclusive Game Design" by Sheri Graner Ray. It cites numerous studies and research that supports increase female purchase with just a few considerations in game design.

I'm dismayed that you used Ms. Raymond's piece as a reference, and then failed to reference it! Instead you make assertations that aren't present in her article, and use those to make your arguments. It's like arguing that the sky isn't orange, when no one ever said the sky was orange in the first place.

I second the recommendation of Sheri Graner Ray's book. If you genuinely want to write an Op-Ed piece on women, and not a thinly veiled personal attack on Ms. Raymond, it's worth reading.

"Artists in any medium have no ethical obligation to create works that are accurate representations of reality."

This is, sadly, true for the individual artists and the companies that employ them. We may still be seeing hypersexualized females, bald marines squirting machismo, and very, very few reasonable portrayals of queer characters in games for years to come. Similarly, the movie industry might never have evolved past supporting only affluent, white, male actors.

The same thing that changed the movie industry will change the games industry: the almighty dollar. Artists have no ethical obligation to portray characters or relationships that go against their principles, but there may come a time when the sticky, pervasive stigma of videogames as an artform consumable only by young white males will go away. At that point, these imaginary artists who have such a powerful sense of evolutionary psychology that the only way they know of to portray a female character is in skintight clothing may well find themselves out of work in favor of artists who can draw, write, mo-cap, and program a realistic female figure in a game. Because, believe it or not, most girls don't like to watch busty broads bouncing booty all over their screen when they're looking to spend money on entertainment - they get enough of that for free from fashion ads.

The problem isn't what artists should be allowed to or forced to make in terms of characters - the market will (theoretically) adjust for that. The problem is that sticky stigma I mentioned before. Female and queer consumers of entertainment see that the usual undertone of misogyny and homophobia is ramped up by a degree of magnitude in the culture of games, and they largely give it a pass. After all, who wants to buy into an artform that doesn't respect who you are and rarely, if ever, includes a single character to whom you can relate?

Thus, no publisher wants to invest in a game with anything but young males in mind, and thus, no such game gets made, and thus, the great majority of females walking into a game store feel out of place, bombarded with ads for games about gruff, manly pairs of men armed to the teeth, where the only female characters exist to be saved or had sex with.

It's a vicious cycle, closed by investors obsessed with one demographic from the interests of the many others.

Alex Raymond's articles aren't borne out of an attempt to regulate the games industry's use of female characters, or to try and enforce some bizarre quota (50% female, 5% gay, OR ELSE NO PUBLISHING LICENSE). They come from trying to raise awareness about this cycle which is, to most gamers, a matter of course rather than a comfortable ditch on the road to artistic evolution which many other media (books, TV, movies) have worked to crawl out of over many generations.

Let me clear up something about the insect/patriarchy comment. It's my fault that the note is there how it is, because when I proofread it I sent Alex this note:

"In your footnote on the Rachni, I'd add that the Insect Queen is simply a form of the Mother archetype--even though she's a leader, her entire life consists of having babies and protecting them. The fact that many insect colonies are matriarchal is complex, because it allows patriarchal thinkers to celebrate female leadership while still relegating it to something practiced by arthropods instead of primates."

As you can see, much of the entire point of my suggestion was lost in translation. But that's rather beside the point, because it's a footnote. Perhaps you don't understand how a critique works, so I'll fill you in.

A matter of editorial modus operandi here: why would the managers of this site allow such a poor ad hominem piece aimed at a new contributor through publication without any editing?

A critique exposes the core underlying assumptions in an argument and problematizes them. This footnote by Alex can in no meaningful way be considered a core assumption of her main argument. That you and the OP even deign to mention it (in the OP's opening salvo at that) only reiterates the shallow depth of your critical skills displayed in the rest of your wildly non sequitur commentary.

A critique of an editorial is not an ad hominem and by trying to present it that way, you have immediately portrayed the article as having no real point other than to insult the writer, which is completely false.

He did expose what he believes to be incorrect assumptions behind Alex's rationale and the ant matriarch commentary is just a part of his article. By trying to paint it as an insult, and claiming, without proof, that the article wasn't edited properly, it's obvious that you disagree with the article and are trying to discredit without any real arguments.

The point of the article remains solid. There is no ethical responsibility for any video game to present reality or fiction with any particular inclination, bias, or lack thereof.

Hey Mike,
I really really like the article and the debate that's followed.
However, your really REALLY asked for it here.

Not because of the content... that's great, but because you kept attacking Alex throughout.
That wasn't necessary.

As a fellow enthusiast of evolutionary psychology, I agree with what you're saying.

I must also add -I understand what you're saying, I understand that a lot of people are ignoring the points you're trying to make and instead .. misconstruing statement so that they can make comments aligned with whatever it is that gets them pissed off. Did I say that right? Maybe, not sure.
You get what I'm saying though.

I can't help but smile at a lot of the arguments here. Everyone seems to be conveniently avoiding the real points made in the other persons arguments, instead choosing on finding chinks in their statements, that can be twisted to make their next statement as explosive as possible.

1. If you agree that artists (and everyone really) must have creative freedom.. then that applies to across the board. No exceptions.
2. You have every right to criticize any artist. But others have the right to criticize you criticizing the artist.
3. If we are to treat everyone equal, then we must agree that a woman has the right to dress anyway she wants.. even if that is a burqa (and you should not think less of her because of that.. or feel sorry for her. Each human being is responsible for his or her choices. Respect them and move on)
4. Business people have the right to sell to whomever they want. If they have research that tells them that their consumers react to a certain type of marketing.. let them target them that way. Because you make money you have an obligation? What about the money I put in.. I want returns, I want growth.. I have people who depend on me, I have dreams.. my kids have dreams. Does getting money involved in the equation make me evil?

To put it bluntly: impossible. Any online gamer knows that the female players are maybe 1 in 10, if that. If you'd said 20%, I might've beleived it. The only way a number as high as 64% will be through horribly skewed statistics.

The only way you could get 64% is if you're heavily skewing your definition of "plays online games", such as
1) Plays free flash games. Gaia online is NOT what we're talking about here.
2) Purchases the games - most kids get games from their moms.

The mainstream games industry - that is, the rich, blockbuster analogue to the movie industry - is almost exclusively male, because men pay for the games. They pay monthly subscription fees, and buy new games every month.

I don't play games to experiance reall life. If I want to deal with real life I'll interact with real people, don't try to force it on me in my games or I'll simply save the $60 and go to a bar.

On this point, I appreciate how you can give with one hand and take from the other. Soft fluffy emotional stuff is not what the original critique (or I) is asking for. We are asking to see something else than a 36-24-36 woman in a game. After all, you do see built men, slender men and other body types in video games. Are you telling me that men, in general, are so unidimensional that they all prefer the same feminine form?

I want to want to play FPS games, car chase games and the like. While I'm doing it, I would like to be able to imagine that *I'm* the heroin of the adventure, not that I am playing somebody else's adventure or worse, feel, through the marketing of the game, that the only acceptable role for me, as a woman, is to lust after the hero.

There is a whole demographic of potential players that game marketing and developers are ignoring willfully. Do these businesses really want to make less money? Do they really NOT want to sell their games to me? I don't ask for much : a pronoun here and there, a few different models (and when you have the time to create half a dozen of male models and not a single female model, there's something wrong. Transpose for dialogs and anything that is gendered).

Try to put the shoe on the other foot (and in this paragraph, you is not meant as the singular you, but rather the collective one):
- What if all the games that interest you have, in 95%+ of the cases, only female heroins?
- What if males, in those games, had only the role of being the dumb guy (or any other stereotypical AND demeaning role)?
- What if 90%+ of the males in those games were built on a single model (and one, while its being adequate, you don't find so hot to start with)?
- What if, per pure chance, you could see (not necessarily play) an interesting male character in a game, but its only purpose would be to be eye candy for women (with associated skimpy clothing, "nude" modes, etc.)?
- What if game design was mainly a feminine field where male designers are mostly told that they "draw/think/design/etc. like a guy" (and not in a good way)?
- What if game companies were marketing those interesting games to women only?
- What if, through self fulfilling prophecies, games that could mark a breakthrough for interesting games that would interest men and women alike would sell poorly due to bad design issues, bad marketing, poor financing, etc.?
- What if companies, due to all the above, refused to even consider taking a real, serious shot, repeatedly enough until they get it right at making a game for men that interests you (after all they did make mistakes when they created games that appeal to the other sex)?
- What if companies, due to all the above, would dismiss out of hand a project for an interesting game for men designed by men (and men who have taken the time to take a look around and realize that there would be customers for their design)?

That's what I'm talking about.

But you could also say that the reason there are way more male gamers is because the gaming industry targets male gamers, specifically teenagers and men in their 20s and 30s. The Wii sold so well because it went beyond this market and tapped the neglected markets. If you had told me five years ago that my parents would one day own a gaming system, I would have laughed my head off but now they own a Wii.

As a female gamer, I think I have every right to demand that tired gender stereotypes and gratuitous sexual objectification in games be, if not eliminated, significantly decreased.

To put it bluntly, everyone has ethical responsibilities. To suggest that someone shouldn't because they require "artistic freedom" is ridiculous. Imagine if someone created a game with a stupid 'blackface' character saying "yessir" and "nossir" to his White slave master. I'm pretty sure that game creators recognize an ethical obligation to at least try not to be racist when they create games. Why shouldn't they feel a similar obligation to tone down their sexism?

I'm not advocating censorship. In the end the consumers will decide. But, while art reflects life, it society also takes its cues from the media. Constant images of black thugs wearing bling and helpless, victimized women promote and reinforce stereotypes.

As for gender, I say it is largely a cultural construct. Men and women are treated differently from the day they are born, so obviously we internalize these differences. And yes, some of these differences have a biological basis, but does that mean women shouldn't get any respect? I mean, are you trying to say that because women and men are different, the portrayals of women in video games is accurate and fair? It's called a stereotype! Besides, as individuals, we are all different and none of use deserves to judged solely based on one characteristic, ie gender.

I don't play any video games, but what Mike says about evolutionary psychology is absolutely correct. And I agree that, "there's a branch of feminism that seems hellbent on promoting the absolute sameness of men and women" it's sad, but there are people like that. They're wrong. Science (not gender studies but actual science) proves them wrong. That branch of feminism wont survive long in the age of the functional MRI.

Of course, when most people say "feminism" what they mean is simply equal rights - they don't mean sameness. Please, those of you who are feminists, please don't get defensive when someone justly criticizes the "sameness" feminists. Mike supports equal rights. He isn't attacking you.

Goodness this just made me lose my respect for Mike D. If you know me from the forums, you'll understand that I'm not making things up just for dramatic effect. I really used to think of him as one of the cooler presences in the boards, and though his conduct from last year onward has me nonplussed, this is the last straw.

I thought he's very disrespectful to Alex R. It's not so much that I have a problem with him disagreeing with Alex R, but more with his attitude. Not bothering to give a "welcome to GC" greeting anywhere, he proceeded to write passive-aggressive refutations to her articles, alienating her before she could even feel comfortable about contributing to the site. It's baffling that GC would allow this behavior.

I'm going to repeat the title "The feminism is unimportant."

Whether Alex Raymond or Mike Doolittle has the more academically researched article to me is unimportant - their belief systems with regards to feminism matter not a whit.

The scary statement by Alex, if accurately communicated by Mike, is the idea that anyone who is supposedly progressive could take it upon themselves to state categorically that artists should only create works to match their world view.

This harkens back to the dark days of censored speech that infected America prior to World War I, where saying that troops shouldn't fight was the criminal act sedition or the Comstock Act, where information on condoms was thought to be to vulgar and deleterious to the public morals that it was a crime to send such information through the mail.

I can empathize with Alex, in that it is painful to see ideas you consider deleterious being propagated - however, moralizing like a religious fundamentalist about the artistic or intellectual endeavors of another communicates a nagging fear that they cannot craft an argument that is convincing enough to persuade others...

I think it's worth considering whether or not Bioware intended Mass Effect as art, space opera porn, or both.

If it's space opera porn, then yes, there is no problem with hot girl on feminine-blue-alien action. More I say!

If Bioware aim for their games to be culturally relevant and admired by intelligent gamers, then no, they missed the mark.

If you want to make porn, go into the porn business. I like porn. Men like porn. Some women like porn. This will not change. You can make high class and low class porn, straight and gay porn, but it will always be porn.

If you want to make an artistic statement, then make an artistic statement. Don't give me "Powder Blue" and tell me it's a character study when the only female character is Jessica Biel and she's a stripper with 5 minutes of talk time and 15 minutes of stripping. Call it what it is. I'd still watch it.

The scary statement by Alex, if accurately communicated by Mike, is the idea that anyone who is supposedly progressive could take it upon themselves to state categorically that artists should only create works to match their world view.

Well, that is the crux of the problem. You can go and read Alex's commentaries yourself. Half of Mike's response is pseudoscience, the other half is a pretty bad misreading that criticism of gender roles as portrayed in a work equates to a demand that designers must conform to some speech code.

At GameCritics.com, we strive to present diverse opinions and preserve the individual voices of our writers. As such, writers are free to write about whatever they want about games and we exercise very little editorial control outside of helping them to communicate as best they can.

In the case of Mike's blog post here, we were aware that some people did not entirely agree with Alex's views and we thought Mike's post could represent the counter-side of the argument, which would hopefully lead to some interesting discussions. At the time of posting, while we had some concerns about the tone, but we did not believe it was disrespectful and hostile to Alex.

Regardless of what we were thinking at the time, many readers like you have since voiced concerns. We acknowledge those concerns and in hindsight, we could have perhaps taken more time to evaluate the post. We hope to learn from this example and we are committed to ensuring that ideas and thoughts are expressed without disrespect and/or hostility towards another person.

I think that when Mike says that game companies are not artistically beholden to anyone with respect to their particular worldview, what he's really advocating for is the ability to make art unfettered by a checklist of PC norms and expectations. This is not to say that some of the motives that inform PC rhetoric are invalid. I can't imagine anyone on this forum actually feels that women should not be treated as equals, nor do I think that Mike's article in any way alludes to that. However, I can hardly think of anything more anathematic to the artistic process than having to conform ones output to a stringent, socially prescribed protocol that is inclusive of every group. Does that mean we should make games that are patently racist or sexist? Of course not (and I think that this suggestion skirts dangerously close to 'slippery slope' territory). Are there games out there that ARE patently racist or sexist? Perhaps. But Mass Effect isn't one of them.

Alex's suggestion in her previous articles that Mass Effect is somehow propagating sexism in the choices they made regarding female characters within the game is, to me, utterly absurd, and I think it's disappointing because this sort of 'cry wolf' mentality actually undermines her feminist goals (the Rachni Queen represents patriarchal and sexist ideals? Really?). How terribly boring would the game world be if every female in every race was the embodiment of Alex's conception of what female equality ought to be? How closely would that hew to reality? I think the diversity of the gendered landscape in the game is much richer and more plausible than it would be had a neutered homogeneity been broadly applied to each of the races.

To me, Mass Effect is a science fiction game. It represents a fantasy world, and succeeds in fulfilling its mandate and its obligations because it represents a broad and thoughtful array of social constructions by which it defines its alien civilizations. Some, like humanity, appear to take a pretty enlightened approach to gender. Some, like the Krogan, do not (though their circumstances complicate the issue). But to treat Mass Effect as though it were conceived as a feminist manifesto and argue that it fails to live up to that completely misrepresents its original intentions.

Any creator is ethically responsible for what goes in their creation. It doesn't matter what it is, and it doesn't matter whether they're doing it for cash, art, or whatever else. But I think all this business about ethics and responsibility is framing the issue in the wrong way. Feminist criticisms of media like Alex's aren't demanding conformance to a feminist-approved set of criteria, as though creators couldn't make up their own minds about how to represent a gender. Rather, they are pointing out the often subtle ways gender biases and stereotypes are expressed through media, and how experiencing those biases can be alienating, offensive, or condescending to women. This may simply not be something designers are even aware of, and any open-minded designer would probably want to take Alex's feedback into account. They are obviously free to agree or disagree, and incorporate that feedback into their headspace and design process if they wish.

Truth is, I think most designers would prefer to be more inclusive when it comes to their audience. Whether they approach their work from a commercial or artistic standpoint, or both, creators tend to want more people to be able to appreciate their work, not less. Since none of us can walk a mile in everybody else's shoes, pieces like Alex's help make us aware of what it's like to experience a game from a perspective not our own, in the same way that a critic can review a game from the perspective of someone who isn't a fan of the genre. So let's be a bit more open about how we receive other people's criticisms, eh?

My comment is the one above Walter's; I neglected to fill the 'name' field in when I originally posted, and mention this only to preserve continuity.

I appreciate what you're saying, and I'm not averse to criticism of games in this vein (even games that I love). I found some of the commentary, for instance, surrounding RE5 and the potentially racially inflammatory nature of its imagery to be compelling, and I could hardly fault female gamers who found games on the whole to be androcentric.

However, I think it's unfair to admonish anyone to 'keep an open mind' about criticism, as though all criticism were created equal. That a critique might reflect an alternate viewpoint does not make it somehow unassailably true. My point was that Alex's conclusions appeared to have been arrived at tendentiously and that she found sexism where there was no evidence of it. While you suggest that Alex isn't prescribing a 'conformance to a feminist-approved set of criteria', her dismissal of anything that doesn't correspond exactly to her philosophical ideal suggests otherwise.

Anyway, I won't belabour the point. Perhaps this isn't the place, but I would be very interested to hear from female gamers what their ideal protagonist might look like in a video game. Faith from Mirror's Edge, for instance, was touted by DICE as a strong, female lead because she was a strong character with athletic but not extreme proportions. Is she representative of where female gamers might like to see games trend, or did DICE miss the point?

I think I overemphasized the issue of alienating female gamers to the exclusion of the issue of perpetuating harmful stereotypes (to players of either gender). In either case, the point of a feminist critique is to bring the ways this might happen to light. And again, designers can agree or disagree, join in the conversation, and incorporate the feedback as they see fit.

I don't think there are many game designers or other creative types out there who actually *want* to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Most would actively want to avoid that, especially as their potential audience grows large, and especially if their audience includes children. The question is, what counts as perpetuating a harmful stereotype? It's definitely not the case that we already have perfect knowledge of all harmful stereotypes and how they might be perpetuated. We've got to have room for people to make new claims on these fronts without characterizing them as imposing unreasonable demands.

Hi Rob,

Lemme clarify: I don't think that because a critique reflects an alternate viewpoint, everything stated in it must be unassailably true. Designers (or anyone, really) are free to agree or disagree, and debate its validity. Some aspects are going to be unassailable in the sense that they represent Alex's response to a game, and none of us can really dispute that she did or didn't have the responses she says she does. If she found something to be sexist, then she did, case closed. Question is, are the reasons for finding something sexist valid? That's one of the things open for debate, and what I'm saying in my previous post (which I wrote before reading your last) is that we have to allow people to make arguments about what counts as sexist (or gender insensitive, etc.) without accusing them of demanding unquestioning conformance. Especially here, because I don't see how Alex was suggesting this.

I also haven't got the impression that she was dismissing Mass Effect just because it doesn't quite live up to her standards. She says she "seriously enjoyed" it for the most part, so even if her criticisms were unreasonable, I'd say she's being pretty reasonable in how she regards the game.

Just to put this in the clearest possible terms: freedom of expression or creativity isn't being contested here. Rather, what counts as gender inclusive or exclusive is.

It's obviously up to designers to determine what they think counts and whether this affects how they design, and I don't think Alex has been saying otherwise. If a designer happens to agree with Alex about what counts as gender exclusive, but decides to incorporate it anyway, they are free to do so. (But that freedom doesn't give them a "Get Out of Criticism Free" card, either.)

Also, as a friend put it, "good sci fi is supposed to subvert and interrogate conventional assumptions, not 'reproduce' them without thinking." Something to chew on.

The moment we say that artists have no responsibility is the moment we let propaganda and hate spread without having someone to take responsibility for it. It's absurd to say that someone is progressive while that person creates stereotypical and narrow art. What Hitler did was art and ze is a nice person. Seriously?

(Godwin too was nice)

I'm thankful for the readers who, in their replies, showed that they understood precisely what I was getting at. I'm also disappointed that some people have misconstrued my statements as personal attacks. It's vital that we recognize the distinction between the criticism of ideas and personal attacks on an individual. My editorial is firm, even confrontational. But it is not personal.

This is hitting the nail on the head in a big way. The tone and tenor of Alex's articles suggested, to me, that she believes it is ethically irresponsible of developers to create fictional characters that perpetuate what she feels are derisive stereotypes. Alex herself said, in an above comment, that she believes, "we should all be able to play games in which we are represented fairly." It is this that I am in central disagreement with. NOT the criticism of alleged sexism; NOT the notion that developers should have the courage to explore more complex themes; simply that we gamers are not owed any kind of "fair" artistic representation by anyone.

I am going to admit: I love Mass Effect. It's one of my favorite games. So seeing Alex's article made me cringe. Her attack on Mass Effect was full of vitriol and spite. She basically said that Bioware was sexist because they did not go into detail about the female versions of every alien species. Video game developers have time and budget constraints. Just because they did not specify what the females were like in a species (or if there even are females or if the females look the same as the males), does not make them sexist. There is still openings in Mass Effect 2 and other expanded universe content to go over that. There are games where the female version of "armor" is a chainmail bikini or a skin-tight leather suit and the male characters sleep with several women. Alex attacked Mass Effect just as hard as those kinds of games. Her whole article is nit-picking about the Asari in Mass Effect, which she judges entirely by human standards and assumptions about gender. She is treating Bioware like they made Jar Jar Binks. If you think the Asari are Jar Jar Binks, which Alex seems to think they are, then you are not thinking clearly.

I apologize if I am harsh, but Alex's attack on Mass Effect, one of the most inclusive games I've seen, is equally harsh.

Now to go on to something positive. Alex, if you really want a game to analyze and criticize, I highly recommend you check out The Witcher. I am surprised that you have not looked at that yet. That game has a whole slew of problems with the way it treats women. You have displayed that you are a good writer, and I think that an article on The Witcher would be a very effective and powerful commentary. I highly recommend it.

"The tone and tenor of Alex's articles suggested, to me, that she believes it is ethically irresponsible of developers to create fictional characters that perpetuate what she feels are derisive stereotypes."

You don't like my tone? Really? That's what this is all about? You don't think I should be angry about sexism? You might want to take a look at this: http://derailingfordummies.com/#hostile I find it telling that people are accusing me of being hostile and vitriolic when my posts aren't half as acerbic as any given Zero Punctuation video.

And maybe you should think about WHY it isn't important to you that human beings of all kinds are treated accurately and with respect in games (in general--not in EVERY game, but overall). Could it be, perhaps, that white straight men like yourself are ALREADY widely represented in video games? That games are already made with you in mind? Think about what it is like for people who AREN'T like you who are passionate about games.

Also: Please read Walter Kim's comments above about the purpose of feminist critiques of art.

I didn't accuse you of being hostile or vitriolic. You have every right to be as angry as you want to be about what you perceive as sexism. But that's not what I'm criticizing.

No, it's because I don't care what kinds of characters developers create. They can be straight, gay, male, female, transgendered, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, black, white, Asian, tolerant, intolerant, beautiful, ugly, or whatever else. They are creating fictional characters to tell a story, not making a commentary on the value of human beings.

1. Can't you see that it's EASY for you to not care BECAUSE you are already well-represented within games? Again, put yourself in someone else's shoes.

2. I DO care, so why shouldn't I be able to talk about it--with passion? (And if your answer is that I should--what is the point to this post?)

"They are creating fictional characters to tell a story, not making a commentary on the value of human beings."

The point of literary criticism is to find meaning in fiction--whether the author meant it or not. My purpose in criticizing games is the same. If you don't understand that, then there's nothing else I can say to explain it to you.

The fact that Mike D continues to misunderstand *where* Alex is coming from indicates his curious lack of understanding of the concept of critique.

Whether he knows it or not, the creators *are* making a comment on the value of human beings, albeit in an implicit or tacit way.

The whole point of criticism is to determine the grounds and limits of cultural thought - and critics do this by evaluating our values (or the way the world is presented and organsised in value systems we typically take for granted).

The point Alex is so *obviously* making is that the male creators have inadvertently *reproduced* the values of human culture - by transposing the presuppositions of gender roles and biases onto (our experience of) an 'alien' culture. It is this reproductive element of male patterns of thought that she is bringing into question and focus.

The entire game world is making a comment by virtue of being value laden - of inserting human values into its own world making.

Alex's questioning therefore helps throws into question Mass Effect's status as a cultural artifact. Good science fiction is supposed to interrogate cultural beliefs and practices humans typically take for granted - if these
are blindly reproduced in our entertainment, then their status as 'science' and 'fiction' becomes problematic - or at least, questionable.

Anyone familiar with (say) the scif fi novel Solaris should be aware of this concern - it sets out to explore how something alien lies beyond human comprehension, despite science's attempt to render it in human categories and thought.

Ironically, Alex' posts have exhibited the Solaris effect on Mike's post : it's had the effect of a mind probe by reproducing his own fears and desires in physical form.

The point Alex is so *obviously* making is that the male creators have inadvertently *reproduced* the values of human culture - by transposing the presuppositions of gender roles and biases onto (our experience of) an 'alien' culture. It is this reproductive element of male patterns of thought that she is bringing into question and focus.

This is exactly the reading I had of it as well.

Alex is criticizing the game for its casually sexist treatment of women throughout, which is a dead-on criticism to my mind. (For a prime, prime example of this, look at the introduction of the Aasari consort on the Citadel.) She feels this isn't pointed, it's not a deliberate attempt by Bioware, but is a reflection of the sexist values of the culture that produced it. Dead on, says I. The worrying prospect of this game being heralded as a cultural gem, and thus reflecting those sexist values back onto other people is exactly the moral (not ethical) issue she's concerned about.

As to Mike's point, I concur that games should be allowed to discuss any topic they care to. Indeed, games have every right to be sexist, racist, or homophobic as they care to. And when they do, we will rip them to shreds. That's our right, too.

Alex has done exactly this.

The old Roger Ebert rule of criticism comes to mind: An artwork is not what it is about, but how it is about it. Mass Effect is a game telling a story of a racially/species inclusive and diverse society, and it does so in a way that stresses non-diverse portrayals again and again. Why is it that in a non-Earthcentric universe, the Citadel choose cherry trees (an Earth-plant) for its council chambers? Why is it that in a all-earth Alliance, the three major human cast members all speak with American accents? There's a very powerful case to be made that Mass Effect's entire 'diversity' is a front, a facade.

Why shouldn't Alex be allowed to make that case?

No, because I do not care about my demographic being represented in games at all. Why should I? I didn't avoid playing GTA: San Andreas because it centers on African American characters and hip-hop culture. I didn't avoid playing a female in Mass Effect because she's a lesbian. Nor did I avoid playing the Witcher because the protagonist is a chauvinistic anti-hero. I. Don't. Care. When I play a game, I am immersing myself in the fiction, not expecting the fiction to conform to my world view.

And while yes, I certainly would love to see developers make games that are more inclusive or explore more complex themes of sexuality, I hope it is not at the expense of games that are less inclusive. I like playing James-Bond style chauvinist assholes. I like playing empowered women. I like playing gay characters and straight characters. As soon as developers are pressured to conform their fiction to some socially prescribed, PC world view, we've undermined the core of what makes them artists and done nothing but regress in the process of growing games into a relevant and meaningful art form.

Being a white male, Mike, you have the privilege of not caring. Your "I don't care" stance would hold a lot more weight if your demographic was not already overly well represented in games. Can you even try to imagine what it would feel like if nearly every single game you played featured a queer woman of color as its protagonist? And there were few, if any, white male NPCs? And you had the option of playing a heterosexual character maybe once or twice in all the games you've ever played? I suspect you'll continue to insist that if that was the status quo, you wouldn't care but the fact of the matter is, you have never had to experience that. People like me and Alex, we have. Do you not understand that those of us who are not as well represented as the straight white male demographic have had different experiences? Do you not understand how our different experiences influence the way we perceive this situations, or why representation might be important to us even though you believe that it is not important to you? And see how someone like you, who is well represented in games, might not have a problem with the status quo but someone like me or Alex, who is barely represented in games at all, would in fact have some serious, ethical issues with it? Do you honestly believe that your experiences as a straight white male have not influenced your worldview and opinions in ways that are not shared by non-SWM?

If you believe this, then you must not believe that equality for all people is important. The "ethical obligation" that Alex referred to in her OP is simply the ethical obligation that we all owe to one another as fellow human beings, to treat each other with respect and equality. Artists are beholden to that as much as anyone else. It is hardly the heavy handed mandate that you have been making it out to be. I mean, how would anyone even go about enforcing this "obligation" that you've been fretting about? It's not even a realistic possibility.

It is not the case that artists are free of any sort of restraint upon their art--case in point, we would not turn a blind eye if an artist broke a law in the pursuit of their art. They are already legally and ethically restrained by many, many factors, not the least of which would be their own consciences. This attitude that artistic freedom is paramount is a bit ridiculous when viewed in that light. Everyone, including artists, has an ethical obligation to not do harm to others. What you seem to be resisting is the notion that sexism, racism, homophobia, etc, in games actually does hurt people and that is ethically irresponsible of game developers to do so. And the thing is, when they do this, it doesn't really directly hurt you which is probably why you don't care. But just because you don't care doesn't mean that it's okay or that it's not doing any harm.

Did you read Alex's articles? It's clear that she chose to critique Mass Effect not because it's the worst example of sexism in a game ever, or because it's even representative of how bad games are in terms of gender, but specifically because she loved the game and because it had done so much right. Because the game handled gender in ways that were so much better than most games, she found it worthwhile to analyze where it had gone off course. It's an important distinction and your suggestion that her time would be better spent on whatever game that you think is more important is a bit patronizing.

Also, there has already been extensive feminist commentary on The Witcher. You should read Man Bytes Blog if you're interested.

Speaking personally as an moderate observer to the spirited gender and ethics debate taking place at GameCritics.com, there's several interesting things to note. Despite one serving as a catalyst for the other, the heart of the topics raised by both Mike and Alex are tangents that don't directly conflict and intersect with one another. Both have both been accused of being "hostile" and both sides have made assumptions and generalizations about the other's underlying motivations based on "tone and tenor" and "privilege".

At GameCritics.com, we made diversity integral to our mission. If you value the diversity that enabled this discussion to take place between two divergent views then I ask that on some level, you find a way to respect and tolerate the other's position even if you don't agree with it.

Let your voice be heard, but be secure in your views and allow your comments to speak for themselves. At the same time, keep an open mind and listen to what others have to say. Appreciating the views of others makes us stronger and is essential to diversity and criticism. If that's not something you believe in, you've come to the wrong Web site.

The reason the Citadel chooses species with (at least one) Earth-based planets is that those planets are scientifically the best at supporting life. There might be a species that lives on a planet with a different atmospheric composition (the Volus come to mind). However, those kinds of planets are still very hostile and hard to live on with a very large population.

As for diversity in the Humans Systems Alliance: Ashley, Udina, and Captain Anderson are people of color. You meet people with a wide variety of skin tones. The president of the System's Alliance is named Huerta (his name was mentioned). You meet a wide variety of races. Also, in the Mass Effect books and codex it explains that most humans are mixed race to the point that they have a tanned skin tone.

As for why the main human characters talk with American accents: The voice actors are American and they were hired because they would do a good job. I'm surprised that there were no British accents in Mass Effect, but typically British and American accents are the best for voice acting.

I did not say that Alex's time would be better spent talking about The Witcher. I did recommend it because I thought she would write a very good article about it. I even said she was a very good writer. I apologize to you, Alex, if I was patronizing. Consequently, I thought your article on Alpha Protocol was very good as well and I recommend that you write about the game when it comes out to see how it actually turns out.

As for the "harshness" of her criticism of Mass Effect, I stand corrected and now better understand her intentions for writing the article. I also think it is good that these questions are asked.

However, I still disagree with her characterization of the Asari. I commented on her Mass Effect article with the subject "Several of your statements about the game are innacurate" (my comment is way too long to post here), noting her many incorrect assumptions and statements about both the Asari and the Krogan.

I still stand by the fact that I extremely dislike Alex putting the Asari on the same level as Jar Jar Binks. The Asari are nowhere near as offensive (or annoying) as Jar Jar Binks. The Consort is a stronger character than Jar Jar Binks. If anyone, even a feminist, would rather have Jar Jar Binks in a movie than a strong Asari character, then... well, I don't know what to say without sounding like a jerk.

If anyone, even a feminist, would rather have Jar Jar Binks in a movie than a strong Asari character, then... well, I don't know what to say without sounding like a jerk.

Rest easy, dude! I never compared the Asari to Jar Jar Binks, and I agree that he is far worse. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I thought otherwise. (Also, FYI, the doctor on the Normandy is British, there is a Dutch doctor on the Citadel, and one quest involves an Indian man with an accent. Still, it would have been nice to see more non-Americans.)

By the way, here is that Man Bytes Blog post about The Witcher Shane mentioned: http://tinyurl.com/n3dhjk The same author also reviewed the game for The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/2672-Review-The-Witcher

Are you sure the Citadel doctor was Dutch? I could've sworn she was French...

There are many characters with diverse ethnic groups. Actually you may not know but Captain Anderson is British they gave an explanation for his accent in the novel Revelations. Personally I thought Mass effect did better than most games when it came to their diversity.

Are you sure the Citadel doctor was Dutch? I could've sworn she was French...

Not sure at all, that was a guess. *looks it up* Oh, she IS French, with a French name and everything! Clearly I need to go back to French class. (Or France, that would be nice!) http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Chloe_Michel

And I DID praise the game's racial diversity in my post, you guys ;) Though I went into more detail at the end of this post: http://whilenotfinished.theirisnetwork.org/2009/08/21/mass-effect-impressions/

Hey, Alex. I apologize if I was at all rude to you. I see a lot of rudeness and insults in forums, especially YouTube comments, so I try to be polite. Believe it or not, your article on Mass Effect was the first gamecritics article I ever read. I do intend to follow the site more now, so of your article I can say, "Good job."

I overreacted in saying that you compared the Asari to Jar Jar and I didn't mean to do that. For me, it was kind of like whenever you hear a critic bash your favorite movie or book. You have a strong reaction and think/say, "Oh no you didn't!" (or something more vulgar). I apologize if I got too defensive of Mass Effect. It is, after all, just a game. As for your opinion on the game, I'll agree to disagree.

For me, it was kind of like whenever you hear a critic bash your favorite movie or book.

Yeah, I hear that. It's an understandable reaction, and it's something we all have to reign in when thinking and talking critically about games. It helps to remember that criticism is very beneficial to games as a medium!

I appreciate the apology =)

I'm just going to add my two cents on this whole thing. I don't quite have the time to address every point brought up in comments- but I'll take my chances with the possibility i'm bringing up a few things people didn't mention.

In-game, despite their portrayal, the asari are the oldest and most advanced living race in ther galaxy and are respected primarily for their political prowess and achievements- which I feel counteracts other aspects of their portrayal.

As for Liara, let's just say she happens to be shy and outwardly innocent, just like some people are. Her personality isn't echoed by any of the other asari in game, and Ashley doesn't fit the usual characteristics seen as 'desirable', leading to much internet hate as people confuse a flawed character (who matures and develops if they could be bothered to take the time) with a bad character. She's opinionated, defensively religious and assumptuous as well as more than capable of handling herself- and yet she's still available as a partner.

As for the way they present relationships, there's a lot of assumption here- considering they've given us non-stereotyped black protagonists (Jacob Taylor, Captain Anderson), non-stereotyped homosexual protagonists (Jade Empire) and numerous others. If Bioware were squeamish about depicting gays alongside lesbians, Jade Empire wouldn't have featured both types in the available romance subplots with implied sex scenes for both. I think the main issue here was a lack of development time and space which had to be hastily (and admittedly somewhat poorly) explained.

In summary, Bioware have both addressed and supported (I believe mostly addressed), several issues across their catalog, including Mass Effect and issues of gender. Since some pandering to the masses is inevitable in any game released, I feel Bioware should be cut a little slack here. There are much more overt targets in the video game industry for feminists who want to address these issues.

P.S. I'd also like to add I'm very disappointed someone chose to attack a scientist of Pinker's caliber with their only example a humourously toned, summarising comment of his (the 'jump in a lake' quote) which they seem to imply is bad because it alone isn't full of technical jargon. I wonder if they even read the rest of the book, or any of his highly interesting works. 'The Blank Slate' in particular addresses the gender issues debate among other questions of equality in a very interesting way.

http://finallyfeminism101.blogspot.com/2007/04/faq-why-are-you-concentrating-on-x-when.html

READ IT.

But they do not make up that same demographic in video game sales, which is what is more relevant in this argument. In fact, female gamers are the dominant demographic in the casual game market, which now almost caters to them exclusively.

It is not enough to just demand change based upon ambiguous claims of sexism because of creative choice and market research-derived information. If feminist-minded gamers want to see more representation, there is an easy solution; work with market research groups that feed info to the gaming manufacturers and show that feminist-minded gamers are a significant market.

What is disturbing me is the hostility that is met with the suggestion that the feminist lobby should create/support games that reflect their philosophy. As an African American I have seen this work quite well within our own culture when we began creating and marketing products that reflected our own ethnic diversity.

Why would it be so adverse if feminist organizations created a scholarship for female/LGBT/feminist-oriented male game design students whose work reflects feminist ideals and theories? Furthermore, why couldn't NOW (or other national organizations of that type) give an award to game companies who market/produce games that reflect their philosophies to some degree? The NAACP awards other companies and groups in that light and a suggestion has been put to their governing body to do the same for other forms of creative media. Finally, I am pretty certain that feminist-friendly gaming companies are out there. Why can't the feminist lobby find these companies and use their organization's clout to popularize these companies and garner support for them?

The most helpful thing (IMHO) that people who feel that strongly about this issue in video games is to take my suggestion to heart and pursue that angle. You'll attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

You conveniently forget to mention that the majority of those female gamers are playing what are categorized as casual games, as opposed to products for "hardcore gamers."

Just clarifying things...nothing more.

By the way, considering Mass Effect, I do agree that there were some generalizations made with the characters and issues with the assigned roles, but I personally feel that Bioware deserves somewhat of a pass as opposed to other game publishers, as they have done more to explore equitable representation of genders and lifestyles than any other publisher.

My argument overall is that this is the 21st Century and there are more mechanisms in place than ever which allow specific interest groups to promote their own agendas and create their own market. Why don't the interested parties take advantage of those mechanisms.