Unreal Representation

Did Dove ever bother to ask the 74% of girls feeling underrepresented if they wanted to CHANGE the status quo? “We partnered with Unreal and Women in Gaming to change this [to get you more represented].”

Forget your reading and writing. Forget your home arts and crafts. Forget your domestic duties. Forget your book clubs. Forget your fitness routine(that takes away precious hours and precious calories that could be spent getting Glad). You need to get more into VIDYA!

And ironic that Dove, who makes soaps, is trying to get girls into something that is, uh, “unhygienic”. You may be putting off baths and showers trying to get your grind on, even putting off brushing your teeth. And the ladies may be putting off, uh, other needs. The world’s-first races won’t accept anything less than one course of action…

Total commitment.

I do not avoid new women coming into vidya, but I do deny them my essence.

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Your starting the ‘get off my lawn you kids!’ early in life.

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What? Does anyone stay 18-25 forever? (Not so fast, Jenkins the Griefer)

I’m not sure what you’re going for here, but best of luck👍

Also, 1/4 moisturizing cream feels oily. :-1:

Did you watch the ad? And did you read the OP? Advertisements cost money to make. One or several digital artists had to put this together. We already know Unreal’s fingers are in the pie, which is tragically ironic, because…

When it can be a GOOD HALF OF THE TEAM in UNREAL TOURNAMENT, let alone the CANON GENDER OF THE MAIN HERO IN THE FIRST UNREAL INSTALLMENT PLUS RETURN TO NA PALI, was a WOOOOMAAAAAAAANNNN, Unreal still felt like they had to collaborate on a social campaign to get more women represented.

Now whether or not that was to appease the other gender, is a different story. Because it’s about “representation”, and representation means something more than mere existence. It may even mean more than the most important existence. Because more female characters =/= more female video gamers.

A woman(canon) slew a queen of the skaarj, thus liberated the Nali. Then later on, the Liandri Corporation employed MANY female combatants, some of them being all-female units. And this was going on by the turn of the century and millennium. But 74% of girls today still “feel” unrepresented. In the days I’ve been on this dirtball towards now, female protagonists have come a long way and not just for fanservice.

And it’s not even how they feel or any of us. That’s just a factual statement that justifies this push. It’s like it’s trying to force something, but it really should be organic.

I think women feel underrepresented by the medium as a whole because for a big chunk of time it was advertised as a boy’s club and female characters were objects or trophies without much characterization. Now, this isn’t true across the board, there have been excellent female characters in gaming since the start, but that doesn’t change the damage advertising did. Ever read those old gaming magazines? Yeesh.

When we see characters like us in a game I think it does feel inclusive. I feel more included by games that have female characters, especially strong ones. This isn’t a chest thumping feminist thing either (although I am a feminist). It’s just that when I saw games with all male casts or games where a token female was in a bikini I felt uninterested, like it was clearly not aimed at me and I was not invited to the party. Female characters were often not my favorite characters either but seeing them meant so much. It made me feel…well, seen.

Interestingly when I first got into gaming consoles etc were advertised as family items, as gender neutral as VCRs. That changed in the 90s… Why, yes, grandma is very old.

Although I do acknowledge the points OP and Aiyako made, from someone who also enjoys games of Asian origin, I see the representation being more of a problem in Western games than in Eastern games, going all the way back to at least when I started gaming in the late 80s.

Not to ignore the fair share of problems Eastern games also have, I overall more commonly see a balanced cast of female characters, or in some cases, the female cast outnumbering the male cast in their games, as opposed to Western games having a history of a cast of 98% males with a few sprinkles of females.

It has been happening for so long in Western games that recently, as we’re seeing an increased inclusion of female characters, gamers feel that it is forced due to the feminist/MeToo/woke movement rather than organically happening. I don’t think it’s too hard to write an active role that seamlessly transitions from a male character to a female one.

Once they’re in that spotlight, it is now a question of whether they’re being written well while minimizing tropes, have a huge backstory, have character agency in the active story’s direction, and do so without making them androgynous or turning to unnecessary romance options.

It’s ridiculous how there are people who FLAG for something they are not, 74% WHO IS? only them, but not the rest of the female gamers in the world.

It was really the most ridiculous thing they did when Japan has beautiful AND STRONG lolis and waifus, yeah… use 2H swords as if it were a broom or something more representative of using something heavy with 2 hands.

and let’s not forget that Baldur Gate represented the hypocrisy of the video game industry ESPECIALLY BLIZZARD.

74%? But there tons of female characters for them to play in video games. The OP is right about the hygiene aspect of grinding video games.

There is an assumption that many videogames, including WoW, portray females in ways that are sexist.

But I think it’s just as sexist to assume that a significant percentage of women actually want to play characters that are borderline overweight or worse.

Many women actually enjoy playing skinny elves or other skinny characters. And there isn’t exactly an abundance of “plump” male characters in most games either.

But of course, no one thinks twice about why a guy might or might not want to play a fat male character in-game. It’s only assumed to be an issue with female players - hence the sexism and why the foolhardy attempt to “fix” this problem will just make it worse.

And if someone really does not want to play a “thin” character, there are dwarves, pandas, and even tauren, which are all somewhat “less thin”…