“I’m just a bloody normal bloke. A normal bloke who likes a bit of torture.”
This quote is from Chopper, a film about a savage criminal who wrote his autobiography in prison. He would make a good character in the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Not just because he is a nihilistic violent killer but more so because he is a man.
Grand Theft Auto V (GATV) was released on Sept. 17, and I spent that day on a cross-city mission of my own seeking out a copy having neglected to pre-order one, thinking that, as with films, Indonesia would not get this game until a month or so after its general release. I was successful — only earning myself a bronze rating for the mission though, due to missing out on point bonuses for planning and time management.
The response of my coworkers when I told them I had spent my days off playing a computer game? “A computer game? I didn’t know you were a gamer”, “Isn’t that a violent game, don’t you kill people?”
I can understand that they may not have known I was a gamer, what with me having social skills and other topics to talk about other than the amount of the undead I killed in Call of Duty zombies mode last night. Not to mention the glaring fact that I am a woman, thus, “obviously” would only play Farmville (I do not), Candy Crush (I am in remission from this one) or games with an over-cute girly character on the front. The need to explain my sarcasm here is not needed, but the fact that gamers are not all men obviously does need some attention.
Female gamers account for 47 percent of the gaming population. Historically, there has been a gender disparity, what with women being too busy with home making or chores or just standing around looking pretty for men, that there just hasn’t been the time to sit at home on a 24-hour gaming marathon fueled by sugar and beer. But things have changed. After all we have microwaves and dishwashers now.
However, this paradigm shift seems to have been ignored by Rockstar, the producers of GTAV, one of the most well known criminal-open world franchises ever, with co-founder and vice president of creativity Dan Houser telling the UK newspaper The Guardian that “the concept of being masculine was so key to this story”, and the decision to have not one, but three — male — protagonists “allows us to create nuanced stories, not a set of archetypes”.
Now, some might say that this glaringly gender-specific stereotyping would be a major turn-off for women, the lack of a female protagonist meaning we have neither empathy nor identification with the characters and, thus, would bypass the game and instead head for a more suitable fluffy game, like, oh I don’t know, what do girls like? Perhaps dolls and dressing up.
I wouldn’t say there aren’t women who have been turned off by this lack of attention to the potential for women to be cold, hard, gangster killers, but when all is said and done, game play, mechanics and marketing are the drivers behind the popularity of a game and GTAV has these in spades.
It is undeniable that the multifaceted universe that Rockstar has created does rely on the involvement of violence to progress the story — which at times is extremely uncomfortable, not just for a mere weakling female like myself, but also for men I have played with. But for me its sexism lets it down as a game. It is easy to laugh off experiences such as feeling up strippers without the burly bouncers catching you as lighthearted, but for a game that has developed immensely mechanically with each iteration, this “masculine concept” Houser speaks of just seems lazy and a complete oversight of its female players.
By-and-large I enjoy the game. However, the fact still remains that this game — and its creators — have created a largely misogynistic experience, which by lacking a female lead — or a strong female character — underestimates the ability of women to advance a storyline as much as it does the buying power of “girl gamers”.
Take, for example, two female characters both related to one of the protagonists: one his wife, the other his daughter. The wife is an ex-stripper, with surgically enhanced embonpoint, who is having an affair with her tennis coach.
The daughter wants to be famous but has no talent and socializes with pornography directors and drug dealers in an attempt to climb up the slippery — figurative and literal — pole of celebrity.
Men are not “put off” by playing as female characters. Take Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games.
So perhaps, it is the creators who are scared of creating female-orientated storylines.
I once worked at a creative agency and I walked past a meeting of my male coworkers who were hashing out ideas for a game aimed at girls. I heard them say, “what games do girls play?”, but not one of them left the meeting to come out and ask one of the many women in the office their opinion.
“What games do women like?” is as abstract as asking what color boys like best. There is no definitive answer. We are all different, men, women, black, white, gay, straight. Granted, it is impossible to please everybody all of the time.
Much has been written on the violence in this game, but I believe, male or female, gamers, by-and-large, are intelligent enough to understand that this is after all just a game. With each generation and every technological development there arrives something that will pollute the minds of the masses, turning us into crazed, addled fools, be it radio, television, the Internet, gaming or 3D printing. In the same breath, game designers are intelligent enough to understand that over-hashed stereotyping is a bit droll and old. They should treat their consumers — and not just the 47 percent — with a bit more respect.
I would — and — could go on but I must dash, my jam is boiling over and spilling on to my knitting.
The writer is a contributor to The Jakarta Post.
This quote is from Chopper, a film about a savage criminal who wrote his autobiography in prison. He would make a good character in the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Not just because he is a nihilistic violent killer but more so because he is a man.
Grand Theft Auto V (GATV) was released on Sept. 17, and I spent that day on a cross-city mission of my own seeking out a copy having neglected to pre-order one, thinking that, as with films, Indonesia would not get this game until a month or so after its general release. I was successful — only earning myself a bronze rating for the mission though, due to missing out on point bonuses for planning and time management.
The response of my coworkers when I told them I had spent my days off playing a computer game? “A computer game? I didn’t know you were a gamer”, “Isn’t that a violent game, don’t you kill people?”
I can understand that they may not have known I was a gamer, what with me having social skills and other topics to talk about other than the amount of the undead I killed in Call of Duty zombies mode last night. Not to mention the glaring fact that I am a woman, thus, “obviously” would only play Farmville (I do not), Candy Crush (I am in remission from this one) or games with an over-cute girly character on the front. The need to explain my sarcasm here is not needed, but the fact that gamers are not all men obviously does need some attention.
Female gamers account for 47 percent of the gaming population. Historically, there has been a gender disparity, what with women being too busy with home making or chores or just standing around looking pretty for men, that there just hasn’t been the time to sit at home on a 24-hour gaming marathon fueled by sugar and beer. But things have changed. After all we have microwaves and dishwashers now.
However, this paradigm shift seems to have been ignored by Rockstar, the producers of GTAV, one of the most well known criminal-open world franchises ever, with co-founder and vice president of creativity Dan Houser telling the UK newspaper The Guardian that “the concept of being masculine was so key to this story”, and the decision to have not one, but three — male — protagonists “allows us to create nuanced stories, not a set of archetypes”.
Now, some might say that this glaringly gender-specific stereotyping would be a major turn-off for women, the lack of a female protagonist meaning we have neither empathy nor identification with the characters and, thus, would bypass the game and instead head for a more suitable fluffy game, like, oh I don’t know, what do girls like? Perhaps dolls and dressing up.
I wouldn’t say there aren’t women who have been turned off by this lack of attention to the potential for women to be cold, hard, gangster killers, but when all is said and done, game play, mechanics and marketing are the drivers behind the popularity of a game and GTAV has these in spades.
It is undeniable that the multifaceted universe that Rockstar has created does rely on the involvement of violence to progress the story — which at times is extremely uncomfortable, not just for a mere weakling female like myself, but also for men I have played with. But for me its sexism lets it down as a game. It is easy to laugh off experiences such as feeling up strippers without the burly bouncers catching you as lighthearted, but for a game that has developed immensely mechanically with each iteration, this “masculine concept” Houser speaks of just seems lazy and a complete oversight of its female players.
By-and-large I enjoy the game. However, the fact still remains that this game — and its creators — have created a largely misogynistic experience, which by lacking a female lead — or a strong female character — underestimates the ability of women to advance a storyline as much as it does the buying power of “girl gamers”.
Take, for example, two female characters both related to one of the protagonists: one his wife, the other his daughter. The wife is an ex-stripper, with surgically enhanced embonpoint, who is having an affair with her tennis coach.
The daughter wants to be famous but has no talent and socializes with pornography directors and drug dealers in an attempt to climb up the slippery — figurative and literal — pole of celebrity.
Men are not “put off” by playing as female characters. Take Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games.
So perhaps, it is the creators who are scared of creating female-orientated storylines.
I once worked at a creative agency and I walked past a meeting of my male coworkers who were hashing out ideas for a game aimed at girls. I heard them say, “what games do girls play?”, but not one of them left the meeting to come out and ask one of the many women in the office their opinion.
“What games do women like?” is as abstract as asking what color boys like best. There is no definitive answer. We are all different, men, women, black, white, gay, straight. Granted, it is impossible to please everybody all of the time.
Much has been written on the violence in this game, but I believe, male or female, gamers, by-and-large, are intelligent enough to understand that this is after all just a game. With each generation and every technological development there arrives something that will pollute the minds of the masses, turning us into crazed, addled fools, be it radio, television, the Internet, gaming or 3D printing. In the same breath, game designers are intelligent enough to understand that over-hashed stereotyping is a bit droll and old. They should treat their consumers — and not just the 47 percent — with a bit more respect.
I would — and — could go on but I must dash, my jam is boiling over and spilling on to my knitting.
The writer is a contributor to The Jakarta Post.
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