The Escapist blog recently had a post with their top 5 selected articles. There’s some interesting stuff there, in particular an article on Marathon, which is quite good. I haven’t read all of the others yet, though perhaps I’ll comment on another in the future. Right now I want to focus on the “Girls don’t exist on the intarweb!” article. Note that the article was published in 2005, so it’s slightly dated (on a side note, it’s really annoying trying to find when Escapist articles were published — It seems like they intentionally avoid using dates anywhere in the “issue”). Still, even if the article is a year old that can hardly be considered wholly out of date.
Politicization of the gaming industry is one of my major worries, right next to terrorism, global cooling, and avian flu. I kid, of course, but it remains that I am concerned about politicization of gaming. Although gaming is one of the most profitable entertainment industries overall, if not the most profitable, I think gaming is still largely in its infancy. The two aims of gaming, storytelling and interactivity are still very much at odds with each other. Furthermore the process of creating a game is a titanic endeavor akin to creating a new language before one even begins to write a story in it. This latter point in particular is a cause of concern to me, as if high-profile games require massive resources then only large and wealthy corporations will be able to bring such resources to bear. One of the pitfalls of the arrangement is that political lobbying forces are far more likely to be successful in influencing a grovelling corporate representative than a tightly knit development team with a strong creative vision. In essence, the more cooks you have in a kitchen the less resistance there will be to adding yet another. But we already know what too many cooks in the kitchen really does.
I’m not suggesting the author of the article is a part of some lobbying group, but such groups undeniably exist and their influence in shaping the terms of discussion is evident whenever the topic of sex arises in videogames. I could go on and on with examples here, but all we need do is look at the terminology and argumentation to see that it is so — Speakers almost always use gender when they mean sex, the usual talk of underrepresentation among characters and among players is dominant. The usual response, of course, is self-flagellation from industry executives for not making women enough of a priority. Not enough of a priority? It seems every third article I come across either examines “The need for more female role models in games”, “The need for more female game players”, or takes either of those premises as a given. Rather than having a discussion, the pre-existing feminist thugocracy has bullied their way into making their talking points the only legitimate starting points.
In a sense I think we’re approaching, if we haven’t reached it already, a Law & Order point — The reference here is to the television show(s) Law & Order, who, since the show became popular, have now featured in absolute numbers more white criminals than actually exist in New York city. Overarching political orthodoxies make it a faux pas to depict minority criminals even though real-world crime statistics bear out the fact that most criminals are non-white. The comparison isn’t one-to-one as games deal in far more exotic locals than Law & Order does, but I’d bet at this point that games featuring hard-assed marine females, pilots, slick female assassins and ninjas, or proud female knights outweighs the number of women that are actually in real-life military positions. Furthermore, I’d bet that most games have a much better sex ratio than real life military organizations. None of that is relevant though because the mentality that drives towards a fifty-fifty representation isn’t one informed by statistics (although it’s certainly keen to capitalize on a tendency of people to capitulate in the face of statistics, no matter how absurd), it’s one that attempts to force an ideal that doesn’t fit onto reality. And, unlike real life, games don’t have an independent reality to keep politicization from wholly succeeding.
I suppose at this point I haven’t even gotten to talking about the article — I was going to go off into an aside about how female characters are frequently better, where sex differentiation exists, than their male counterparts. I was also going to make a mention of how this brand of tokenism is going to expand if capitulated to, but I suppose I’ll leave that for another day — The author’s complaint, as I take it, is one that deserves attention. In particular, she seems to object to what seems to be a denial of her existence as a female. I certainly agree that this attitude, which I generalize to be “denial without proof,” is very irritating when encountered. It’s a combination of being accused of lying and a demand that, in order for some stranger online to believe your claim, you must prove yourself to them (frequently with no such promise of reciprocation). At the same time it’s hard not to imagine the majority of the reactions the author speaks of as being tongue-in-cheek or just plain common sense. The author herself titles the article in a tongue in cheek way, and it’s undoubtedly true that many of the players who discovered her feminine wiles were also being tongue in cheek — If I didn’t think it were a tired joke I might make the same one.
Skepticism, though, is the refuge of the wise when it comes to interacting online. There is too much room for deception to be credulous of unsubstantiated claims. If you’ve seen the SomethingAwful Looks scam this really needs no further explanation. Even cursory explorations reveal authors misrepresenting themselves.
As the author herself notes:
Things have changed quite a bit since I wrote this, I see much less of this than I used to. It’s interesting to see how the culture evolves in such short periods of time.
I’d argue that the majority of the experiences (that is to say, the online experiences) she has encountered are as a result of a particular configuration of social elements. In the early days of the internet no one ever expected you to have pictures of yourself — Digital cameras were unheard of, and only those elites with access to scanners could send pictures. Since the advent of digital cameras it’s become expected that you share pictures, even with people that you don’t even know. Go take a look at any dating service and you will see it replete with ultimatums such as “Include your picture if you want a response.” Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned but that seems like an awfully demanding thing to ask from someone before even initiating contact.
Times change, and these days I wouldn’t even believe a photograph or a series of photographs. A real-live voice is much more reliable than a picture that anyone and their brother could have stolen from MySpace. While I would’ve been skeptical of a picture before it’s simply less and less trustworthy now as the availability of pictures of any individual girl increase with MySpace’s popularity. At the same time, I’m not the sort to require my online friends to prove themselves to me — If you’ve earned my trust you’ve earned my trust and I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.
A few months ago I picked up UT2004 Editor’s Choice Edition (yes, I am tragically behind the times in gaming). I spent a few weeks beating the single player tournament mode before ever going online. Once I did, one of the first servers I went on had women talking on voice chat — “Cool!” I thought, and then fragged them. The only thing I have noticed is that presence of female gamers encourages the male players to be more talkative and creates a more cohesive community for the game as a result. But I’ve noticed similar communities in clans with 18+ age requirements as well. The maturity level is what’s important here.
By the way, Whitney you’re pretty hot, want to go out?
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