I haven’t given this much thought before but how many HG are locked to male compared to female?
Yeah it turns out gender roles can shift really quickly sometimes. Insofar as it’s actually true that women don’t buy as many video games (as noted I don’t think we have reliable data on that point and it might just be wrong) that is because they aren’t marketed to women.
Also the idea that a female protagonist won’t sell to men very well is just wrong. Sure, some men won’t buy a work with a female protagonist but I’ve never seen a franchise fail by having a female protagonist; any men who pass it up are replaced by women who pick it up. Gender choice apparently does sell even better if the recent behaviour of AAA game publishers is any indication. Been a big upswing in twin protagonists where you can play as the male or female twin lately, for instance.
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I made up a list about six months ago, but I haven’t really updated it since. At the time, I counted 15 male gender-locked games (and including each sequel in a universe like the Infinity series as a separate game). I wouldn’t be surprised if this number is higher, but it honestly wouldn’t be by much.
With the releases of Slayer of Evil and The Courting of Miss Bennet, there are now 2 female gender-locked games.
Once again there can be a lot of other factors here, so I’m glad you mentioned gender roles.
For example, I know some people ask “Why do women play so many casual games?” What they tend to mean is games like Candy Crush or Hidden Object Games…games one can play on a smartphone because they have limited time.
Obviously, this is ‘what do I mean by limited time?’ Once again, just my own observation, but people like this often have families to raise, especially young children. I don’t think it is any stretch to say that raising kids can take a lot of time (as well as household chores, etc.) And before someone points it out, I will also say that a lot of men are in the same circumstance, but in the US there is still an expectation of women being the primary child caregivers.
So, we have a group of people (women and men alike) suddenly busy taking care of their households, and many of them may have a job as well (part-time or full-time). If you are doing that much stuff, it can be hard to get invested in a AAA game that might take 50+ hours to complete (Assassin’s Creed, Red Dead Redemption, etc.)
However, with their smartphone, they can play a short game in spurts, one that doesn’t necessarily require a large investment of time…and yes, this is a good thing in favor of Choice of Games as well. Very wise to have their engine able to be ported to smartphones 
Hell, I don’t think it is a stretch to say that many writers here take longer to finish up work if they also having a family to raise/take care of.
In general, I agree. I think very few will deny that most male gamers have no problem if there is a female protagonist; if that was the case then Metroid or Tomb Raider wouldn’t sell.
However, a poorly made game certainly can be doomed no matter who is on the cover. I mean, there is a reason Mirror’s Edge really didn’t do that well.
On a personal note: that is one reason I will give Nintendo credit for taking a chance on the Bayonetta series, bankrolling #2 and even the upcoming #3.
I will say that in general I’m very pleased that many AAA publishers are doing better, even if it is in babysteps. Of course, I also realize they are trying to expand their market as well…when the average gamer is now 35, that also reaches the point of diminishing returns (once again, raising families comes to mind).
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I disagree .
Yes, but I don’t think Faith being the protagonist hurt it one bit. The unending refrain about the game was that the gunplay sucked and players resented it. And I don’t think it failed commercially, it’s just that the studio also made Battlefield, which is incredibly profitable. Mirror’s Edge did get a sequel, and they redid the combat engine and kept Faith.
I have spent some time thinking about this today. My conclusion is, that in the AAA game sector most female protagonists who are accepted by most male players are, like the already mentioned Lara Croft and Metroid, are not located in female positions, socially Seen. Both are though action Heroes, without having many female traits, besides the appearance.
This led me to think of for whom games are mostly created. I think one of the major selling groups are male from 14-xx. I guess most gamers who don’t accept female lead characters belong to the early age group from teens to midtwenties, who might have a fear of being Seen as someone who is into girlie stuff by their pears. So playing games with female leads is only ok, if the game itself is seen as “manly” enough or the character is “eye candy”.
Just assuming. 
I think you have the causality backwards, at least in part. The traits are considered manly because the protagonist is traditionally a man. It’s not the gender that determines the traits. Or to quote an interview about designing Legend Of Korra:
Boys didn’t care that Korra was a girl; they cared that she was awesome
From the perspective of the 14-twenties set Laura Croft and Samus are awesome.
Also, yes, a lot of female protagonists in major games are “eye candy” but frankly I have long suspected that the vast majority of publishers have no idea what they are doing. Like, here’s my wallpaper for a period in my twenties:
That series is hardly without eye candy moments, but they don’t get to be my wallpaper because they’re not why I love the show. So I very much think the prevalence of eye candy is from publishers learning the wrong lesson when things sell.
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You are right about the manly part, but I think it is both ways and maybe a circle^^
To the eye candy part, it is always a matter of taste, thats for sure, but I can tell you for some people it is like I said^^ It is clearly not everybody, and if it seemed that way, I assure you it was not intendet to say every young man is that way. I have met several guys who told me they were playing female WoW characters, because they like to watch them running and jumping^^
For myself I´ve got to say genderlock in AAA gams does not bother me that much, I like to have a female alternative, but if there is not, I won’t care a lot. But it is a lot different with IF, here I almost expect to be able to play as whatever I like.
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For male genderlocked HGs there are the Infinity series (2 books and a 3rd one is worked on), The Great Tournament series (2 books tho the second one has a kinda hidden playthrough were you can choose the MCs gender) and the Doomsday on Demand series (2 books).
But now that female genderlocked games are getting released too (Courting of Miss Bennett and Slayer of Evil so far), well at least for myself, I can say that my annoyance over male genderlocked games lessened a lot since I originally created this thread.
Edit: Almost forgot about Lords of Aswick that one is male genderlocked too (tho the author works now on a female genderlocked game)
Edit 2: Swamp Castle, another male genderlocked HG.
(guess I should have made a list for myself before writing this post…)
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Yeah, there are people who think that, but I think it’s not remotely as big a section of the market as companies think; they’re just confused by the overlap of people who like these stories and people who like scantily-clad women and also people who consider the eye candy a passing irritation to deal with on the way to what they’re really here for, which is one of the eye candy girls saying “We must assume the enemy can raise R’leyh in the straits of Dover now that they have possession of the Necronomicon.” and then going and doing something complicated to defeat Cthulhu.
Same franchise as that picture, different girl.
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I agree with many of the things you said but what popped quickly into my mind reading these two examples is that Lara Croft is kind of made to be an eye candy imo and they revealed the fact that Samus is female late. I wonder if Samus would be considered so awesome if her gender would have been made clear when the first Metroid game came out.
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It is the accepted wisdom among publishers that she would not. It is my opinion that the fact that is the accepted wisdom is a sign that publishers have no idea what they’re doing and the idea that action games with female protagonists don’t sell is simply a bunch of publishers refusing to admit they made a bad game.
A particularly blatant counter-example from anime is Madoka Magica, which is highly popular among the exact 14-20s set conventional wisdom says would avoid a show about five girls doing magic battles with little eye candy like the plague and would not consider a polite young girl with her hair in curls who always insists on tea and cakes and whose power is to summon and manipulate magic ribbons to be awesome. But we do. Because Mami is and she fights the aloof black-haired girl Homura who has a bracer that is bigger on the inside in a spectacular gun duel. If you’re wondering where the guns fit in, Mami makes elegent and finely etched muskets at will out of her magic ribbons and Homura stole the JSDF’s entire armory for her last spectacular fight scene and still has some machine guns left over. I am barely exaggerating; she pulled dozens of mortars and a missile cruiser out of her bracer in one fight scene.
So yes you can absolutely convince the target demographic female protagonists are awesome and when a publisher blames an AAA game’s poor sales figures on a female protagonist I mentally translate that as “we are bad at making games and we’re trying to shift blame to the audience.”
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Lara Croft is a bit of an ehhhh-case:
Back in the day she did what she did because she enjoyed it and stuff…
then ‘origin’ (or what it was called) came along and suddenly she’s this weak little girl who gos through hell and has to become rough and tough to survive (while the (male) player ‘protects’ her)
Sorry I don’t know that anime. The drawing seemed bad so I didn’t spend time on watching it.
Anyway I would bet my one month payment that those publishers were make. And I’m not into betting.
But I don’t care much about past mistakes and stuff if they change their ways then it’s all right by me. And they are changing their ways judging based on the newer Fallout games, Skyrim, Bioshock, Dragon Age games etc.
@MeltingPenguins I admit I never played any of the games with Lara croft in it. All I know is based on same videos on YouTube and some comments I’ve read on different websites. For me the eye candy status they gave to her was enough to make me stay away from those games.
Anyway after reading this I wonder what is the female player supposed to feel?
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There’s a often a big difference between a “strong female character” and a “well written female character.”
This article is a bit harsh in places but did a pretty good job at summing up a lot of my frustration at the way women are often portrayed in media (including those rediculous outfits in many games.)
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ok i see alot of people talking about video games as in games that you can visually see like lara croft tomb raider and samus its easy to look at them and not visualise yourself as the person so i think its easier to play as long as its got a good story and well written character but i think when it comes to games like cog and hosted you using your imagination to visualise the story so it gets harder to play a story if the mc is of the opposite gender cause it ruins your visualisation of the story at least thats my opinion
P.s i know i spelled some stuff wrong
i 100% agree with your frustration on how media potray women but i think its getting slightly better i also get frustrated with tv shows aimed at teens and older having these six pack guys always having there shirts off in scenes where it makes no sense for them to have there shirts off and why are women always gotta have high heels on in movies when it makes no sense example bryce dallas howard running away fro a t rex in high heels i was screaming at the tv take your shoes off and im guy noticing a woman run in high heels going no makes no sense to keep them on
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Lol that sounds like me. It was one of the stupidest things I ever saw
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No kidding. I was hoping the T-Rex was going to eat her.
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I agree Madoka is awesome, it’s easily my favorite animae 
(btw might be a good idea to spoiler some of that stuff for those who haven’t seen it yet.)
Edit: I hate the word correct on my phone that changes the words I type. (Fixed the above to make sense)
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