How come there isn't a lot of female main playable characters in video games?
Topic.
I'm just curious why there doesn't seem to be many female main characters. I find it weird considering most of my favorite video games feature female playable characters. (Ex: Lara Croft from Tomb Raider reboot, Max from Life Is Strange, Fem.Shepard from Mass Effect Trilogy, Fiona from TFTB, Female protagonist from Dragon age series, etc.)
What are your thoughts on this? Why do you think there isn't alot of female protagonist in games?
P.S: Sorry if this topic has been done before maybe I missed it if so I apologize. This random thought just popped in my head while playing Witcher 3 for some reason lol.
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Because people are sexist.
Because after they made a male character, they were to lazy to make animations for a female character. ~ubisoft~
Some of my favourite and in my opinion best story based games have been with Female characters. The Last Of Us, The Walking Dead Game, Life is Strange.. There are a lot of good gems out there.
In the majority of story based games where their is an actual character, the protagonists is often just as much a female and in RPG's you are usually given the choice. No doubt there are more male protagonists overall in gaming but its where the line gets drawn. In games where the protaganist never speaks or even has much of a character I find it harder to care about the gender at all, their a vessel not a character.
Not to mention I'm sure recently each years games likely have a more equal number, female main characters are never going to catch up overall (every game ever released) due to simple maths/chance.
There was a company that asked Naughty Dog to replace the box art for The Last of Us with Joel in the front and Ellie in the back instead of the other way around. Thankfully, Naughty Dog declined.
Here's the picture:
What does that have to do with this?
Oh god, prepare for the shitstorm. If you're curious of how this thread will turn out, here's a simplified version:
A: "How come there isn't a lot of female main playable characters in video games?"
B: "___ has a female lead!"
A: "Some games do, but women are under-represented overall."
B: "More gamers are male, so they're tailoring to the market,"
A: "Women play games at a similar rate to men,"
B: "Developpers can do what they want. FREEDOM."
A: "We're not saying to make an 'equal gaming amentment' to the constitution, we're just saying, hey, a few more female leads would be nice."
B: "SJW!!! SJW!!! FEMINAZI!!! RAWR!!!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMoLCA3GQ4
I actually think there is more female protagonists now than there ever was, which is awesome.
So... basically games from Squaresoft...
True though the argument can easily happen oppositely with people claiming sexism etc while the other half honestly doesnt care either way and then they get insulted for it
This video is brilliant. Sums it all up.
Ever heard of the Galbrush paradox?
I never heard of 99% of those characters, but still cool to see there is more than I thought lol.
Are we not on the subject of male/female protagonists? I was just sharing something.
But isnt Joel the main playable character? Dont get me wrong I dont mind how the company does the box, but I'm guessing a request to change things is common for many things, and in this case was due to who was the main playable rather than gender.
Both Joel and Ellie are main playable characters, and the whole story basically revolves around Ellie herself. So no, it wouldn't make sense for the company to request a change.
I guess maybe the better wording to my question is why isn't their more main female protagonist in mainstream games. Most of the characters mentioned on that list are from Japanese games I believe.
Hey I'm just saying why isn't there more notable female protagonists out there.
I don't mean to go off track, but you just made me realize something with
Most video game protagonist are white males. You never see alot of diversity. Hmm weird, I guess you make a good point there
Only reason I brought it up because it just popped in my head and felt like talking about it. I just never see alot of female protagonist in mainstream games in recent years. (Outside of RPGS which alot of the time they let you choose which is why I love rpgs). Also I will give you Residence Evil, I completely forgot about that. It does have a good amount of Female protagonists.
I've always thought it's because the developers are mostly male. People make characters similar to themselves. I don't care about the sex if the protagonist, as long as they have something that overshadows it. Race too.
Kind of like how you'll say 'black guy' but he's a soldier so you should 'soldier' because it's more true to the character.
The funny thing is this video highlights that MOST female gaming protagonists come from or originate from Japanese developers.
There is barely any Western created ones.
Ellie, Jodie, Lara, Clem, Celtic warrior(played as in Rayman legends) everytime they use a female playable character to me it;s been a massive success and an awesome game I loved all these characters
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121064-Naughty-Dog-Flat-Out-Refused-to-Change-Last-of-Us-Cover
Even from tlou cover ^ You can see why not gamers every game they had them were massively successfully it's ignorant Devs who think all gamers are sexist and just want male characters treating the gaming population like idiots
WE LOVE FEMALE CHARACTERS WE WANT MORE the games which they were used proved like TLOU won nearly every award and all 10's in reviews why can't they LISTEN
Sorry this issue really annoys me as most of the games I loved in the past few years all had female badass protagonists who I adored it's clear we all want more and it won't affect sales negatively like they believe but improve them
The Celtic warrior's name is Barbara lol just sayin and there's a lot of different girls to play as in Rayman legends too.
and let's not forget Telltale's own -
OP already had Fiona in thread description
I don't think TLOU got tons of awards just because of a great female character.
I don't mean it like that just shows a great female character won,t restrict a game and Ellie was a great character which contributed to an awesome game
That is true.
People seem to be missing the point of discussing the lack of female protagonists.
You can list a lot, yeah. If you tried to list the number of games with male protagonist, the list would be far far far far far longer.
It's about proportion.
People cry way too much, you people act like its 1864, where women are horribly mistreated, it isn't like that anymore. If women wanted to have more game characters or whatever, why don't they create their own games, instead of blasting Game developers for creating the characters they created. Women can do whatever they want in this society. They have more power than men, at this point.
But why does it matter so much? There is already a substantial list of female protagonists in games (here I go bringing up lists again), and as people here have stated there are more female protagonists all the time. If there was like three total female protagonists in gaming I could understand being upset and thinking this is an issue. I too would be of the stance that we need more, in that instance. As it stands, that is simply not the case, there is already a large number and that number continues to grow.
Why should companies make female protagonists if they don't want to? We don't need female protagonists to become the new "generic white male with brown hair and stubble," class of protagonists. Unless of course people do want that. I personally don't care for generic protagonists of any kind. I prefer one that accurately suits the story the developers are trying to tell. If that happens to be a female, that's fine, if not, that's also fine. I just don't think we should be looking at developers and assigning them genders that their protagonists need to be, especially when they are doing all of the work to put together the game and write the story. Their game. Their story. Don't buy it if you want to play as a different type of character.
I already know what you or someone else will say to this, but I'll say it anyway. I personally do not care what gender or race a protagonist is so long as they fit the story well. It's all about the story. I do not need to have my gender, sexuality, race, hair color, hearing capability, level of fitness, pay grade, toe nail length, etc, represented in a story to enjoy it. That's not what stories are about, at least not to me.
Now we insert the reply that tells me my opinion doesn't count because I'm a straight white male, and that I only don't care because straight white males are often represented in games. As if this actually applies to me, even though I just specifically stated that I do not give a shit about representation in games and will play them regardless of character race, gender, etc.
This is fucking genius, lmao.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Agreed for the most part. Preach.
But there are still many "Western" created ones :P
Jeez I didn't mean for this to get so heated lol.
I never count rpgs because yeah you usually get to choose. That's why I said I love rpgs.