Where are all the women?
By Matthew Taylor
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The internet and members of the video game community periodically lose their minds. Forum topics and conversations about release dates, frames rates and console bashing can be suddenly silenced by someone asking the question: Why is there no women in this game?
When Ubisoft announced their next Assassin’s Creed title, “Unity”, at E3 on Monday night, the post conference questions regarding the fact that a female assassin wasn't available as a playable character began to cause a stir. Normally, level-headed gamers chat about debatable subjects and usually (but not always) come to some level of mutual understanding on both sides of the fence. But the conversation about the lack of female characters and their portrayal in games seems to spark a burning fire in peoples minds that engulfs entire websites, comment threads and forums. Born in 1990, I often do not notice straight away when the world around me, or admittedly even myself, says or does something that is considered sexually degrading or unequal. This could also be due to my upbringing, but I've never felt that women get a hard time, or felt the need to think of them as “other” or “different”. It’s only until recently that I’ve tried to open my eyes and see how both sides are treated. |
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Getting back to Ubisoft, the inclusion of women in their Assassin’s Creed titles isn't new ground for the company. Female assassin characters have been present since the third game in the series, “Brotherhood”, and have been seen in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag as non-playable characters. They also released the PlayStation Vita title Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, which had a female lead. Ubisoft and the Assassin’s Creed series have a history of including females in their titles, so why exclude them as playable characters in the new game, especially with the inclusion of multiple player co-op? Ubisoft's answer was resources. Time, money and resources to include a female lead alongside the male lead as an option. With the release date already committed and set for later this year, I can understand why time and resources could be the cause. It takes all these things to animate and record voicing for a character. But maybe it’s less to do with the time they have left, and more to do with the time they have spent.
Developing a game must be hard, and I'm under no illusion that it’s as easy as “just add another one”, but my take away from what Ubisoft have stated is that they are out of time and money for a female character, because they didn't think of adding one from the start. Developing a male character side by side with a female character doesn't seem that like great of a stretch. Jump animation? Make two distinct but equally compelling jump animations. Sword fighting mechanics, building climbing and hiding in hay bales could all be worked on at the same time for both characters, giving the company an accurate time frame and the resources to complete the project, while giving the public an achievable (i.e. Watch_Dogs) release date. |
Defenders of the norm and keyboard warriors happy to keep things the way they are will point to the conversation about equality and scoff. They believe that anyone fighting for this cause are trying to over-think the subject and unnecessarily complicate gaming. Almost as soon as people start to ask questions about equality, there’s someone answering with a condescending, knee jerk reaction stating that they don’t believe that there is an issue. Honestly, this used to be me. I didn't realise there was a problem. I didn't think there was a problem. This has nothing to do with the oversexualisation (this is a separate problem which affects both genders) of females in games, I believe this a problem with exclusion and a lack of understanding. It feels like female characters appear to be after thoughts. Additions. Downloadable content thought up by someone at the very end of production.
I’m always the vanilla character when I play video games. My Commander Shepard (Mass Effect’s main character who can be male or female) looks like the Commander Shepard on the box. But I also know a lot of people who play as female characters whenever they can. Some of these are men and some of them are women. The reverse to this are people like my sister, who always chooses to play as a male lead character. She’s a heterosexual female who likes to play as a guy in video games. These are just choices people make.
Would all games make sense to have playable female characters? I don’t believe so. Some story-lines and plots wouldn't make sense with a cut and paste female and male system. But what I would like is more games released with female main characters and the option to choose between them when it makes sense to the story. Realism in video games comes up a lot, but while most people are talking about graphics, animations and dialogue, maybe we should ask for the inclusion of women. Because a realistic representation of our world includes men and women.
I'm a 24 year old guy who chooses the white guy on the box art, but the world needs to represent women in video games.
I’m always the vanilla character when I play video games. My Commander Shepard (Mass Effect’s main character who can be male or female) looks like the Commander Shepard on the box. But I also know a lot of people who play as female characters whenever they can. Some of these are men and some of them are women. The reverse to this are people like my sister, who always chooses to play as a male lead character. She’s a heterosexual female who likes to play as a guy in video games. These are just choices people make.
Would all games make sense to have playable female characters? I don’t believe so. Some story-lines and plots wouldn't make sense with a cut and paste female and male system. But what I would like is more games released with female main characters and the option to choose between them when it makes sense to the story. Realism in video games comes up a lot, but while most people are talking about graphics, animations and dialogue, maybe we should ask for the inclusion of women. Because a realistic representation of our world includes men and women.
I'm a 24 year old guy who chooses the white guy on the box art, but the world needs to represent women in video games.
For a different perspective on this subject you can read Gary's Article Ubisoft, Feminism, and the Place of Women in Videogames, Here
Images courtesy of Ubisoft
