A Greater Need for Diversity in the Video Game Industry and Culture

Since time immemorial, men have often viewed women as innocent, frail, and desirable objects. Throughout history, stories and art done by men tend to be a reflection those beliefs. Cases in point include the ancient Greek myth Andromeda, the medieval fairy tale Snow White, Jacques-louis David's The Oath of the Horatii, and Adolphe William Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyr. Enter the 21st century and video games. By now, views of women have changed. Yet the way in which women are depicted and represented in mass media and popular culture have continued to cling to the ancient and by-now outdated views of women in spite of the social reforms instigated in the United States, Japan, and other progressive nations. This is also the unfortunate case with video games.

Ever since Super Mario Bros. was released, women have been portrayed in numerous stereotypical roles, including but not limited to damsels in distress, fighting sex toys, sexy sidekicks, sexy villianesses, and background decorations. From an industry perspective, these gender roles are cheap and marketable. Recent news articles interviewing game directors tend to reflect those beliefs. Chris Perna, an art director for Epic Games, stated that although the introduction of playable female characters in Gears of War 3 was empowering to players, having a female protagonist in the popular third-person shooter franchise for the Xbox 360 is "hard to justify." Ashraf Ismail, director of the recently announced Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, said that having a female lead in a future installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise "wouldn't be surprising," which is ironic given the fact that the main leads in all previous installments were male. While looking for publishers to produce the upcoming cyberpunk adventure game Remember Me (the publisher ended up being Capcom) creative director Jean-Max Morris said that it was difficult to do because, since the main character Nilin is a woman, he and his team experienced rejections with statements like "you can't have a female character in games." This is not only an industry issue; it is also a social and cultural issue, albeit a serious one, with the video game community. During development of the fighting game Dead or Alive 5, director Yohei Shimbori said that he was surprised with the fan feedback of the demo that came with Ninja Gaiden 3, which mainly consisted of requests to have the female characters more sexualized, given their reputation for being sexualized celebrities in previous installments of Dead or Alive. This story is far from an isolated one; for around twenty years until recently, the video game industry has focused on making games that cater to straight, white, and adolescent males. Whether that specific audience likes it or not, they are no longer being considered the core gaming audience as the wider gaming community is calling out for more diversity in the gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of video game characters. Yet the industry is still reluctant to broaden the audience as there is still strong resistance from the traditional audience. In the case of women who seek to speak out against the sexism in games and online matches, such resistance boarders on the lines of bullying, sexual harassment, and threats of violence.

As a long-time gamer who aspires for a career in the gaming industry, I am strongly inclined to support the cause of increased diversity for reasons rooted in economics, design, and my understanding of social psychology. From an economic standpoint, the straight, white, and adolescent male audience is a narrow target audience for making video games. Strictly continuing to adhere to that marketing tradition would be economic suicide, as the demise of G4, a television channel intended for gamers (those who are heterosexual and male, of course), can attest. From a design standpoint, the artistic and storytelling tropes that had helped games sell in the past are unlikely to do so in the future given the fact that the gaming audience had become much more diverse in gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and age than it was twenty years ago. Going into further detail about the various stereotypes in video games would be a tall order here. On that note, I will be examining those stereotypes in future entries. The fact of the matter is that video games need to have a greater need for diversity than ever before if they are to survive as a cultural past-time, a business, and an art form.