I don’t think people here are hating any author. We respect what they do but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t voice our suggestions and opinions.
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This is an interesting reminder, because I’ve been volunteering at my local public library, and one of the areas that I’ve been keeping in order is a portion of the science fiction/fantasy section… and I’ve noticed that, while there seems to be near parity in author gender overall (judging from names—and with Anne McCaffrey contributing a pretty huge portion all by herself 
), maybe a little male-dominated, the science fiction portion is very much male-dominated (certainly with exceptions, like Norton and LeGuin), while the fantasy portion appears much more female. This definitely is making me wonder how much of this is attributable to pseudonyms, though 
(It’s also nice that the library includes various anthologies of underrepresented groups 
they’re certainly making an effort.)
Also, really disappointed to hear that about Isaac Asimov. I had no idea 
This is where I’m really getting into disagreement. Gender doesn’t give you that much more to work off of than humanness itself. People of different genders aren’t that divergent that their gender is enough to give focus where none would otherwise be present, and characters of ambiguous gender can be characterized and developed through all the other myriads of factors that distinguish personality. Gender doesn’t define that much about what someone is like as a person.
Expanding this to other parts of the discussion, I do see how socialization plays a big role, and agree that this is something to take into account when writing any society which has gender-based socialization. (Fictional settings can, of course, lack gender stereotypes, or could have gender stereotypes that are different from our own; plenty of real-world societies have gender stereotypes which differ. This could make for an interesting exploration too.) Even so, it remains the case that people react in incredibly different ways to the same socialization. Speaking for myself, my reaction to being socialized as a male was pretty much entirely an active rejection of this socialization, for as long as I can remember being aware of “macho” as a concept. As this is coming from someone who does still mostly identify as male. My thought processes and reactions and pretty much all these “nuances of daily life” are going to be dominated more in opposition to these stereotypes than by their presence. (And while I can’t speak for other people, conversations with certain women have led me to believe that they had similar but reversed experiences.)
I realize that reaction against socialization still involves that socialization, but I would say this is where player choice becomes especially valuable. If you offer choices that span a range, the player can define whether their character is according with expected behavior for their gender, or for another gender, or just acting in some way that’s not all that gendered at all.
One thing that would turn me intensely off of a game would be seeing that thoughts and reactions of the main character are based on their gender, just assumed by the game narration that that’s the way they’ll be thinking because of their gender. (I’m especially looking at Alter Ego here 
) You’re certain to be getting it wrong for a vast number of character concepts, and a vast number of actual people. Depicting gender socialization as present is one thing, but using it to determine player character reactions and thoughts is going to alienate me from my characters and curtail player choice.
I’m also going to note again that even in ideas where you want a character who was socialized as male or socialized as female, that still doesn’t mean you can’t have an option where the character is trans, and doesn’t identify with the gender they were socialized as, whether or not their society as a whole accepts that.
Not to say this was the same thing (since I understand sexism throws way more nonsense at women than at men ), but I can relate pretty well to this from the opposite direction, since as I was growing up, my interests were pretty routinely considered girly by my peers (I am fortunate to have had supportive parents), and I ended up getting pretty defensive about this. I also ended up spending way more time playing with girls than boys in early childhood, because I found their activities more interesting and imaginative—there seemed to be a pretty big machismo thing with most of the boys around who valued physical and sporty activities above all else. Which surely affected my socialization as well, contributing to my points above 
anyway, I actually often went for female protagonists in fiction because I could often relate better with them than male characters who exhibited male stereotypes and I also remember a story from when I was pretty little, when we got our first DVD, and I was telling another boy about this, but when he asked what it was, I just clammed up and said he wouldn’t be interested… because it was The Little Mermaid.
So… yeah, these pressures simultaneously disparage women and girls themselves, leading to all these distressing stories I’m reading in this thread about people being excluded, and also contribute to devaluing interests and stories that are associated too closely with women and girls—just look at marketing assumptions that girls will watch stories about girls or boys, but boys will only watch stories about boys. It means less female-focused stories, too, when boys—who become men—consider those to be “girly” and therefore somehow lesser.
(Also, just wanna say, I admire these posts you’ve been putting out here, @Lys!)
Would it be disrespectful or hateful to suggest that a scene could use better pacing, to say that a scene could use a clearer description, to say that a stat had unbalanced effects, or to say that a character had weak characterization? If not, why is giving opinions on gender-locking any different?
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Absolutely and that was definitely part of my point there when I said personality-wise it doesn’t have as much of an effect as from an external event point of view. For example, a guy liking certain things won’t be confronted about them like a woman might be. This becomes even more pronounced with transgender people, who will face prejudice and confrontation even more than any man or woman who have always identified as that gender, even if they have traits socially seen as belonging to the opposite gender.
I still believe that if one wishes to raise these kinds of issues up, whether big or small, and have some kind of confrontation in a story over player choices to have their character be one way, then it only serves that purpose to establish a starting point. A male character seen as acting feminine would be called out on it, a female acting male would be seen as an oddity, a transgender or fluid gender person would have their life and motives questioned, especially in societies that mirror our own societal constructs and prejudices.
You do have an excellent point about making it more pronounced or defined via player choice. I need to think on that especially and see what I might do about including that in my own core writing process.
A male-female sliding variable would most likely be far too savage of a simplification for something as nuanced as that.
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Yes, yes, yes! I could have written this about my own life! Though, while my father wasn’t single, I was his firstborn and he had grown up with only brothers, so he shared what he enjoyed (Star Trek, comics, and video games, primarily) and I never heard any gendered crap from either of my parents about what I could or could not be interested in. It was only at school when I got made fun of for liking Batman instead of whatever teen drama was popular at the time that I learned to hide those parts of myself, at least away from the people who would bully me for them, until I got older, more confident, and found like-minded friends.
THAT is the issue with bringing up statistics and surveys. A lot of female gamers on MMOs, for example, will play as male characters and/or not speak in order to be able to play without harassment. And depending on the sample sizes and how this data is collected and analyzed, I still feel it doesn’t always acknowledge ways that basic safety or wanting to be able to play unmolested can skew the numbers.
In agreement here, too. I wonder if, from anonymous and unbiased sources, more females report playing single player RPGs and the like or not. Sadly, the industry is so obsessed with microtransactions and multiplayer experiences in order to nickel and dime the players that those types of games are less likely than ever to be released by the big corporations (though there is a treasure trove of good stories to be found from indie studios). I think any video game company that doesn’t open options to female players (NOT to be confused with trying to pander and condescend, which some have done and it’s a really insulting turn-off, tbh) is only shooting itself in the foot financially. At the very least they’re cutting off a potential source of revenue by not at least trying. But, it is fully their right to do so, lol.
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I also got into video games, Star Trek, Star Wars, and D&D because of my dad. We had a Super Nintendo because my mom loved Mario, but PC games were my dad’s thing and I always watched him and played when he wasn’t using the computer. When I was in college we built PCs together and even now in my 30s when I built my new one I took all the parts to his place over the holidays and we built it together.
The social disapproval for gaming really only mattered through about high school. Early on it had more to do with my parents’ 80s era Satanic Panic attitude than gaming being a “boy thing.” Everyone was into Zelda, while I wasn’t allowed to play (I had a Christian knockoff where you threw a donkey’s jawbone at sinners).
In high school, I can’t really tell how much gaming contributed to things. I had so many unpopular, nerdy interests, one more didn’t matter. It was also the first time my mental illness manifested, so I had too much else going on to think gaming had much impact.
As an adult, it’s considered kinda eccentric and not much else. I make fun of my friends’ Real Vanderpump Kardashian Bachelor shows and they make fun of my games. If anything, it’s gamer guys who make a big deal out of it. I avoid bringing up video games around gamer guys because I don’t know if they’re going to be weirdly impressed that I play games or a gatekeeping type who’s going to grill me because I haven’t played Halo or whatever their standard for a “real” game is.
You sound like you have a good relationship with your sister. I’m sure she will value having something in common with you. Lys had some good suggestions on what games might appeal to her. You might also try games you can play together without necessarily interacting with the gaming public. Off the top of my head, Borderlands 2 has co-op capability and Don’t Starve Together has the ability to password protect online games so strangers can’t grief you.
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My brother had the sole ownership of our very 1st PC (and not because of his gender, but because of seniority). Naturally, as he was playing, I watched over his shoulder - for a while. Of course, I wanted a piece of that. No one ever questioned my interest - the PC, with all the games installed, was considered (by both me and our parents) just another toy that my brother was supposed to share with me. I was entitled to that gaming experience. And I got it - when my brother wasn’t around to hog the PC. Untill I got my own.
And society in general doesn’t give a damn. At least, the non-gaming one part of it, and most of the gaming one too. (Of course, there are always sexist or elitist jerks in any community, but who cares about those)?
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I don’t know about other people, but I never really thought that deeply about it.
It probably does have something to do with extra coding, but I think it’s ultimately what the author envisions the story to be like. The only story that I have that’s gender locked is Sabres of Infinity. I haven’t finished reading it all yet, but what I have read is really good.
This is a bit redundant of me to say, but I think that as long as the story is good, it doesn’t take away the quality of the overall story (for me at least)
I couldn’t bring myself to try and read through all of these replies so maybe my two cents isn’t even worth anything here lol but I’ll still say it.
I wouldn’t describe myself as bothered by it, but I still would not play a gender-locked game.
I mean to say, I would be bothered if I must play a game that doesn’t have a gender choice, but I’m not bothered by the existences of said games. Luckily I’m not forced to play those games anyway lol
There are too many possible reasons (even though many reasons are pretty half-baked) for speculation to give us any good general answer. I think a good reason is just, “I wanted to.” One’s true colors and feelings about humans different from oneself can really shine through when attempting to “justify” some of their choices such as writing a gender-locked MC. So I just think they shouldn’t try to justify it.
In the end, it’s the author’s decision to even make the game in the first place and their choice to write the game as they do. I think that’s a cool thing, even if their choice is not my cup of Coca-cola. The only thing is, if they choose to make a gender-locked game, they need to also maturely accept the fact that they may not get as many buyers as they would if it had gender choices.
I tend to choose male, but I still would not buy a game gender-locked as male, personally. There are a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t buy a gender-locked game, but it seems to me they’re usually personal reasons. There’s no way in hell I’m going to get too personal on a public forum haha, but I will state that I have some trauma from my childhood and have ended up struggling with my gender and gender presentation in my teen years, and even if I would have generally defaulted to male anyway, I do not care to have my choice taken away from me.
That’s how I feel. At least in the world of text-based interactive games. I also tend to be a bit weary of (but will still play) games that use first person instead of second person POV, just as a personal preference. Because it feels less like I can project on the character, maybe? That’s the kind of experience I like to have with interactive fiction, feeling like my own character if I’m making the choices. Some don’t care one way or the other, but I don’t want to feel like I’m basically just reading a novel and sometimes I can decide what ‘John McMan’ does.
I have absolutely no problems playing other types of games with already established main characters set as one gender. Remember Me? Prototype? Persona 5? I can play any and have a great time, but I get taken out of a work of interactive fiction if I feel too limited whether it’s in gender or character as a whole. (Though maybe P5’s protagonist is less established as an example, but I’m attached to him and can’t project onto him lol)
As I think was mentioned before, luckily, gender-locked games are definitely in the minority so I don’t find it worrisome or bothering that they’re out there.
Everyone has their reasons for what they do and don’t like and what they do and don’t do. In the end, it’s impossible to please everyone no matter what. Let’s all take it easy and give our attention to what we want to give our attention to.
Anyway this was my incredibly long way of giving my unnecessary opinion that you can choose to pay any mind to or not. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk
OH, sidenote: another thing that draws me away from gender-locked games (especially if locked as male). Though I usually don’t get through the demo anyway, if by the end of the demo I still can’t tell if I can at least choose my sexuality (if there’s romance in the first place. I don’t have experience with how these games tend to go. Again, I don’t play them) then that’s a big red sign telling me to nope out. I get the feeling if a game restricts me to male, it’s also not gonna let me be gay and that’s too much for me.
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well there is the cheap answer for a lot of games.
Cheap: many are genderlocked male due to for a long time in history males were the more dominate role in society through history and the predominate characters in even modern stories in Hollywood.
there is the partially cheap answer hosed in only a fragment of truth
many of the writers are male and the primary audience of most games are male (cough cough bull)
then there is a response that makes some sense many of the games that are male gender-locked are probably written by male authors and as a male myself we are not readily ingrained tho think of things from a more feminine perspective or else your a weak sissy (sad as it may be). others who may be able to think more feminine are concerned that if they try and touch into a subject that doesn’t fit the most common response the vocal majority (often in males and females its actually the minority just the loudest most entitled jerks) will peg them as sexist pigs and ruin their lives, more often the case for men sadly so most don’t ever try as despite the attempt at teaching equality men are still viewed harshly and expected to be chivalrous by the mass (not necessarily the individual i can say this from experience) and any that fight back are horrible monsters and auto default guilty until proven innocent. not trying is going to get harsh responses but its safer and less painful to just say “i don’t want to get it wrong” and incur the smaller wrath than what they would receive if they tried.
all this being said gender-locking a game is just plain easier to tell a story from one perspective and writing from a purly neutral idea and not responding differently to a persons apparent sex in a game can alter the level of immersion.
i can safely say in texts my auto type response is he even if i know the person and know that is not the case for them its my ingrained thought in the absence of seeing a person my brain auto identifies with myself. When there is a game that does not recognize the person based on identity and at least 2 other identifiable marks connecting into the story and believing i am this person (i prefer full immersion in acting and any game where you are the character) its flat out ruined. i may not care what role gender i am when i play but just not acknowledging it is a sloppy way out. gender-locking is just a thing that happens and due to a large number of reasons male gender-locking sadly happens more frequently. (honestly 2/3ds of my games on my phone and pc that are VN are Otome so for me i just don’t care the sex as long as its acknowledge)
Long drawn out waiste of a rant over…
i wonder if anyone can tell i think this is a ridiculous amount of hate this subject has received.
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I think that adding gender choice to a story/game that only affects the text (i.e. he/she, him/her, etc.) is quite easy to do. Writing a gender choice that actually has a material effect without falling into the stereotypes that so many people don’t approve of these days is much harder to do and needs a lot of extra work. That’s probably why it’s not so common…
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In console/PC games it doesnt bother me at all as long as the story is well written and more importantly I can stand the protagonist. I’m not a fan of the Fallout series even though you can roleplay as either gender. Most of my all-time favorite games are male locked (or more like boy locked, INSIDE, last guardian, Ico, sotc etc.) Life is strange has one of the most lovely female protags ever (Max my angel, not Chloe.)
I happily play gender locked MC’s if those are well written and appeal to my liking, so even if I’m a woman, male protagonists are always welcomed if they appeal to me. Aka Study in Steampunk is one of my favorites, yet it is gender locked. It’s just a shame that people somehow judge a game’s worth by the protagonists gender. (but I know those people have their own reasons) Ultimately I’m a fan of games that let me play both, with the rule of a well written MC.
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Tbh, is not something that bothers me. I am female and like to play as female every time I can, so when games are genderlocked male, I just don’t play them. It’s not a big deal for me.
But, what I can’t understand, is why this seems to create a situation where the authors creating this games are to blame because there are not genderlock female games. They are not responsible for creating this games. If there are not enough female authors that don’t want to create female genderlock stories, I don’t see how this is the fault of male authors that just want to create a book.
I, myself, don’t think I could be able to write a CoG game with a male MC. I can do male NPC because I don’t have to write what is in their minds, and with that, I have experience, but I find extremely hard to imagine a male point of view. This is just because I am one of this persons that learns from experience, and obviously, I haven’t experience being a male.
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What is a male point of view? And a female point of view? And a nonbinary point of view?
Try to think of a scene where different genders are involved, and think of what each would do. Like say, buying a car.
What would each of these different genders do differently in this scene?
Could you not write someone from another gender than yours buying a car? I’m not saying this to you specifically, but others who also made a similar statement about writing characters of genders different from theirs.
I can almost guarantee if that someone replies what their gender would do in this scene, someone from the same gender would come and disagree; like people said before, all genders have different personalities.
When you add other modifiers like religion or culture, things get even more complex than simple gender norms. If you are writing fantasy/sci-fi stories than it can even get harder, as in a fantasy/sci-fi the writer can give whatever gender norms they wish; it doesn’t have to bring the norms we have in our current world.
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Basically, I will play as anything except a straight male. (I am a bi female.) I might consider otherwise but for me it’s kind of similar to what a lot of people said above - being a woman growing up so many things were just default male that anything else is just so awesome. But I also have really conflicted views on the topic because my favourite game is Study in Steampunk where you’re genderlocked to male (though not necessarily straight!) I think what I push back on is “default male.”
Unlike some here I don’t object or think it’s cheap when authors say they are trying to write something historically accurate, because just because an author could open it up to dragons, magic etc. doesn’t mean every author HAS to, and some stories just work better with a more “specific” MC than a “blank slate” MC. I definitely am more annoyed with a blank slate MC who can be anything except has to be male. Some authors are interested in telling a story more about a particular person/time/place and I think that those stories have the right to exist.
That said I do wish there were more female-locked stories too. I think the presence of male-locked is totally fine in a vacuum where anything is possible, but in a world where male is seen as default and female characters have to be female for A Reason it is sort of macro-annoying though not micro-annoying, that few authors want to tell a story with a specific female character. But, I don’t think that means male-locked stories shouldn’t exist. I just wish there were more options. Though there are plenty of non-locked stories which males the odd male-lock not horrible for me even if I’m less likely to play them personally.
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I walk into a car sales.
Sales person: “This car is beautiful, look at the colour. And you get to sit up so high above the other cars! We get lots of women buying cars like this because they can see over the other cars that way. It’s worth every penny we’re asking.”
My father walks into a car sales.
Sales person: “Well it doesn’t have a lot of miles on the clock and it’s in great mechanical condition. Plus it’s got a tow bar. The price? Well I guess we could negotiate on price.”
Private car sale: Me + Father.
Seller talking straight over the top of me: “It’s a beautiful car mate. Do you have a son? I reckon your son would like this car…”
(Wish I was joking but the above are based on real conversations last time I needed to buy a car, and don’t even get me started on mechanics who have tried to rip me off assuming I would believe that checking the oil and windscreen wipers and other “mechanical things” that i wouldn’t understand being a girl is worth a $700 service fee. So yes you could write “buying a car” from a female and male POV.)
I actually fully agree when it comes to character locked protagonists. If there’s not a good reason for it though then making it gender choice is great.
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I understand what you mean, but still, I couldn’t imagine a male point of view as easily as a woman’s. I can picture in my mind different personalities for a female MC, but if it comes to a male, then, I just can’t.
I’m trying to think of ways to explain this better, but the best I can come up with is: most of my friends are male, because of this, having long ass conversations with them in the middle of the night when we are all getting philosophical, I have learn that most of them have a mindset completely different to mine. When they were talking about some of their struggles in live, I just couldn’t relate and properly understand, while the rest of my male friends were all like really understanding of those struggles.
The problems could be the same at their core, but the way the would approach it, or the reasons that would make it a problem for them were so different from mine or my other female friends, that I have a really hard time picturing what is inside their minds to properly write from their point of view.
I think that if ever wanted to write a CoG (I don’t 
) I should have to ask for volunteering men to get pshyco analysed and answer many many questions.
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Or maybe you just have different thinking patterns as individuals rather than as a gender. I am a woman, but, on average, i can relate more to my male friends than female ones.
So it made me think that maybe it’s not really because of gender, but because we’re more similar as individuals.
Because i can use the same reasoning with race and sexuality and there would be a lot less games a black, gay woman could play.
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Ah, it’s been a long time; meant to reply to this but I forgot.
Alright, so here’s the issue, this example you provided are from other NPCs reacting to yours, it’s not a different POV of the MC themselves.
I think the example I used was flawed and allowed for that (even though I said what the MC would do differently, and did not even imply the existence of a clerk in the scene), what I wanted for others to think is what would the MC gender make them behave differently about something.
Try to imagine a scene that does not feature anybody else other than the MC, and think of how their gender would make them take a different action.
To me, I don’t think I could even make such distinction; easy to see that this is defined by personality, not their gender. I don’t know, to me I just see it that way, I think if authors could simply understand people as people, they could write from any “POV”; what they should try to understand is the POV of a angry person, of a friendly person, of an evil person, of a charitable person…
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I’d argue Jacic had a very good example that goes with your ida of an MC behaving differently… Because IRL people do because of sexist shite like that.
To further roll with the example: Many women would bring a guy to buy a car, even though they have the better knowledge about cars, just to (mostly) avoid the condescending bullc*ap
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Cuz that’s what they felt like writing I assume.