Mostly a lot of computer games where you can choose gender but NPCs will refer to he (could be dialogue slipping through, if I am generous) and where you are supposed to oogle/fall for some female NPC (the latter is also evident in many CYOA found on here too).
I think this is where the author have a responsibility, if you will, to cater to choices and such that can cater to all, be they feminine women and men, or macho men and women and everyone else outside and beside that. I suspect that is where a lot of work and insecurities comes into play.
…I notice I am so clearly not your average female gamer. Eh, taste in games, as varied as the player. What is a game any way? Heck, some people claim game is art, but you can’t play art, can you?
I know I have problems playng a straight female ronin in SoH too. Is mostly that “itch” I feel basically on 60% of games with the optional female protagonist.
Is a mix of signals that make it quite clear that my character is a second thought (at least if straight, since many straight guys find lesbians sexy) because of all the innuendo/flirts from female NPCs (with no player input) but no interest from male NPCs (if basically my character doesn’t scream in the ear of the RO “I’M INTERESTED IN YOU!!!”) and big emphasis on how the MC watch other female curves.
Basically, either innuendo to being lesbian/bisex, or completely asexual. At least… of all the non otome games I’ve played, I can think only of Chloe from Uncharted: the lost legacy (I still haven’t played it, so I don’t know if she is only attracted to man, but in the past Uncharted games she was), Jade from Beyond Good & Evil and the protagonist from Lollipop chainsaw are the only straight female protagonists I can remember without player control.
Otherwise, I welcome more “masculine” actions from female protagonists, expecially if are in tune with the “profession” of the MC. Plus I’m a very pratical person in RL, and I was always kind of tomboy, so for me a MC who think too much about more “girly” things is much easy to make less immersed than more
As of this moment, there are over 10 male gender locked Hosted Games. Is it the majority of the Hosted Games? Of course not. But at this time, there are no female gender locked Hosted Games. Yes, there are some that are Works-in-Progress, but until actually published, they don’t count.
As for the realism argument…no, 99% of the time that doesn’t apply. Even if you have a game which may include combat, etc. there were female warriors at various times, even if sometimes they disguised themselves as male (American Civil War comes to mind). Were there necessarily substantial numbers of them? No, but you can always find some.
To echo what @Eiwynn said, there were female fighter pilots in WW 2. Now, if you are talking about fighting on the US, then the answer would be no.
As others pointed out, all you would have to look at is Russia. They had female fighter pilots, tank drivers, even infantry who fought. This isn’t including the various resistance movements which rose up, and included female fighters in their ranks…and for those who try to say ‘females can’t be soldiers’, then tell that to the women who joined various rebellions.
So, if I wanted to set a game in WW2? I would actually avoid the ‘official’ Allies…one is because of the ‘gender-locking’ which would be required…but the other is that fighting as a Russian soldier, or a French resistance fighter would actually make for a more compelling story.
The silly arguments of “I can’t write a character that’s not my own gender” and “I’m trying to write a realistic setting”, I can’t help but think it’s possibly a slight overestimation of the author in question’s skill as a writer when pointing out the “flaws” in their reasons for their chosen settings and people. I mean even IF it is silly(which might not be the case depending on who you ask), it wouldn’t necessarily mean that everyone knows about it or that they can easily overcome it if they do know about it, which touches upon something else that was mentioned in this thread, the possible reason for the “many” gender-locked male HGs being attributed to a lack of skill as a writer, or lazyness.
I don’t really know if this is the case or not, but from searching the forum for any gender-locked male games I can see that none of the people who’ve done these games have written in this thread yet, and here I echo what @N1GHTMAR3 said a while back in this thread “you’d have to ask those who genderlock their games to males.” for an exact answer to the OP’s(@Cari-san) question as it pertains to Hosted Games interactive novels.
And as to whether or not it is a good or bad thing to gender-lock I wouldn’t know, but assuming the game follows all the guidelines and rules then gender-locking isn’t forbidden afaik(?), and obviously going from that if a writer chooses to gender-lock they are within their right to do so, even if some of their audience don’t like it.
Personally, I’d like to play as a male every time because I always imagine the character I’m playing as is me IRL.
Sort of like the Headcanon that was mentioned earlier in this thread. But this is just for interactive novels like the ones that are created from CoG and HG. Any other game that I don’t feel really immersed in(typically only RPG games) I’ll play as whoever and be fully happy with that.
This is a matter of personal taste because for the ones that are gender locked, I can say that it didn’t improve it for me. Whether it was good or not was based on the skill of the author themselves.
Correct, it isn’t forbidden. And many people wouldn’t have a problem with the gender locked male ones if there were at least some gender locked female ones to balance it out.
The only one that really got under my skin was Choice of Steampunk since, unless it changed, the ‘Choice of’ part of a title could only be used for official CoG games (Choice of Robots, Choice of the Cat, Choice of the Deathless, etc.), and this implies Choice of Steampunk was CoG approved with its gender locking.
Then those writers who try to make their games more accessible? Then I at least consider them trying harder than the ones who gender-lock because it is a tougher thing to write.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve been attempting to write a game which is genderlocked male, and the simple reason for that is that I feel it’s how I could produce my best work. The vast majority of characters in my stories are male because it comes naturally to me to write from a male point of view, and when I’ve tried to write with a female MC, I lose interest very quickly or I end up turning them male.
Moving onto a different point, I have to admit, I find it odd that people will complain about things clearly not aimed at them. Some things just aren’t meant for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Shield… admittedly you made me laugh with the line of ‘complaining about stuff not aimed at them’ as it’s far more commonly guys, cis guys at that, throwing a tantrum and getting really nasty if something does not cater to them…
Perhaps you need to flex your writing muscles and write a short story with a female protagonist. Not a game not something you have to devote days or months of work to. Just short stories. And when you get confident in that extend the length until a game doesn’t matter because you could write war and peace.
I don’t have any great reason but i’m female and i don’t like playing any cog/wip that gender-locked female. It just bother me when lines like “your skirt is bla bla bla” or “puttin on my makeup” or when mc and ro is in conversation and someone mention my mc as “cute girl”. (Tomboy and badass girl included) I’m a girl and i had enough of that everyday, give me a chance to play as a boy!! This is just personal view but for me i see many female writer try to make female more powered in bad way (feminist went on wrong way) that’s why i tend to avoid any gender-locking female game. (Books included)
I’m not sure I understand why people have a problem with gender-locked male games if the main reason is that there aren’t any or enough female locked games?
I mean I can get the hint that people feel left out and ignored perhaps, females and non-binaries i.e, but don’t we want to encourage the authors to feel free to do what they want?
I personally don’t fancy gender-locked games, I like the choice, and I like that it’s accessible for others than just my own gender, but at the end of the day I’m not the one writing these things.
That being said though, I absolutely encourage female-locked games and applaud the choice of making them, even if I will never pick them up myself since I prefer playing as a male(although it might vary on the game).
Also you might absolutely be right about authors “trying harder” when making their games more accessible. On the other hand I would also assume that a gender-locked game can also be very well done and worked on just as much as a game that’s more accessible, but to these things I feel like we’re just speculating and theorizing, or at best speaking in general terms.
I obviously am not speaking for everyone, but if a store front gets a certain perception, then it can be a self-fulfilling one. So if in Hosted Games, if the perception keeps building that all the gender locked ones are male, then it could discourage female gender locked games from appearing.
You actually see that complain in the Visual Novel community, though it is usually with female MCs.
I’ve never said that authors shouldn’t be free to write what they want. By the same token, this also means if they do something that puts off a part of a potential audience, then those people also feel they have a right to speak up.
Someone up above said “I find it odd that people will complain about things clearly not aimed at them.” I deleted a reply because I didn’t want to seem antagonistic, but the gist of it was that actually there was a group of people who wanted to play that game, but felt left out, especially when a female gender could be included (many of them had real world examples given).
What I find myself trying to do is encourage authors on being inclusive unless they present a very good reason why they aren’t…and so far, I haven’t found the reasons other than one or two to be very good.
And if you posted on that hypothetical female gender-locked game, you would have the right to post being dissatisfied with there not being a male option…and you would find me agreeing with you, depending on the game.
I’d say one of the reason is the ‘othering’ the sheer amount of people (like shield) that go and say they get bored writing female mcs etc.
It’s the underlying message of ‘you woman you not welcome’ that swings in it.
Honestly, I don’t have a problem with genderlocked stories. Sometimes an author has a clear image of what their written world is like and what kind of mc would fit best within the narrative. I don’t need my mc to be exactly like me in order for me to relate to them. I can relate to female characters all the time despite not being female. If a character acts like a human being realistically would, then they’re relatable in my book.
I have tried, and honestly it wasn’t very good and I didn’t see the point of doing something that I wasn’t interested in and would take time and effort away from what I liked. I know that I have limitations as an author, and I accept them and I just try to improve on what I already have. I will also say that I have other reasons for not wanting to write female characters, but they’re personal and I’d rather not go into detail.
Which is why I usually go against their universe.
The second infinity game: “This woman wants women to be soldiers isn’t that preposterous main character who is a male and from a society where you better believe it’s preposterous” Mc: “Sounds cool actually”
Lords of Aswick:
You’re a dude are you straight or gay
Straight
Ok here’s a bunch of girls and guys just in case your wrong
Fuck it I’m leaving
Ok well your getting a dude massage you sure your not a little gay?
Nah
Ok well here’s five more women
No
Here’s some giggling teen girls
No
…the Hosts wife?
No
You’re getting married having sex and having a baby it’s my fucking story you little shitbag
:Deletes game:
Yeah some authors do it better than others. My main point is that it seems bizarre to be unable to relate to a character that isn’t the same gender as you. Because there are settings and narratives where it simply wouldn’t make as much sense. Like say in the Infinity series, the discussion on feminism in-universe would fall a bit flat if your character could be female without anyone batting an eye.
Eh, taste in games, as varied as the player. What is a game any way? Heck, some people claim game is art, but you can’t play art, can you? 
