Guild Wars 2

Demented Sheep.1642:

Vexander.9850:

bullyrook.2165:

Agreed. I didn’t notice too much of an “imbalance” between genders up until the living story, the only male we have in the main group is Braham. There is nothing “wrong” with this, but it seems unlikely that all the men in Tyria lack spines, talent, and good will.

Not only this, but it often feels like the Males are being type casted in a way. -Most- major male lore characters are either Warriors or Guardians it feels like.

Logan – Guardian
Braham – Guardian
Rytlock – Warrior
Faren – Warrior

Its kind of like the writers are telling us the male characters are only good enough to be meat shields, that they’re not smart enough to be an Engineer or an Elementalist or a Mesmer. Especially mesmer to be honest. We’ve got 3 human female Mesmers now who are very prominent in the story (Jennah, Anise, and Kasmeer).

Treherene, the main of the personal story who everyone seems to forget is a necromancer and a scholar. The main reason why he got the job of marshal was due to his knowledge.

Gixx the head of the durmand priory is also male.

Tybalt is an engineer and by far the most popular of the mentors.

Evion isn’t much of fighter but he’s crafty.

Guardians are spell swords, not just meat shields.

Not to mention women being sepllcasters, archers and thieves and men being warriors also comes with the implication that woman should stay at the back and can’t be useful without trickery or unless it’s fantasy world where magic makes up for gender.

I did say -Major- Lore characters, the Destiny’s Edge and Biconics ones mostly, but I added Faren in because he’s fairly memorable as a lovable idiot. Trahearne is a good point of a Major Lore Character who isn’t a meat shield, however, as a Sylvari, gender doesn’t exactly hold the same significance. Sylvari also have the dream, which means they share experiences and so forth, so its expected for them to be able to make all kinds of excellent profession characters despite gender.

Gixx is an Asura, so it automatically goes without saying he’s not a meatshield and smart, that’s just a racial quality.

I always thought Tybalt was a Thief, but you’re right, he’s an engineer, which is a refreshing change of pace.

I have no clue who Evion is and neither does the GW2 wiki.

Guardians are indeed Spellswords but they’re still one of the two only classes who wear heavy armor and are designed to take hits, and generally fight on the front lines in stories. It’s not like Braham or Logan use a Staff or a Scepter when battling.

However, I agree with you, the inverse of this is just as valid a complaint; Men might be too stupid to actually do something that requires half a brain, but it definitely makes women look too weak to stand on the front lines and go toe to toe with their enemies.

Here’s the thing: have you ever heard the expression, ‘99% of everything is crap’? In any body of fiction, there will be a few incredibly well-written characters, a few standout terrible ones, and the majority will be average. Insisting on holding ‘minority’ characters to a higher standard of writing just means they won’t show up at all, and functionally, saying ‘no women/gay people/disabled people unless they are totally super awesome and everyone loves them’ is the same as saying ‘no women/gay people/disabled people.’

I’m not convinced that no representation except for some 1% of unusually brilliant characters is better than wider, and more variable-quality representation. Should Guild Wars 2 not write any more characters at all unless they are worthy of Nobel Prize-winning literature? Or are we ok with average, mediocre, blandly-written characters, just as long as they are straight, able-bodied males who don’t challenge the ‘default’?

My other thought is that even if women or LGBTQ people, etc. were/are a majority in GW2: so what? Real-world demographics don’t apply, because to my knowledge, Earth is pretty low on, say, sentient humanoid plants and magic-powered dirigibles. Plenty of women (like me!) enjoy Tolkien’s writing even though women are pretty poorly represented in some of it. Why is the reverse so impossible to countenance?

For people to then turn around and try to use blackmail tactics on Anet to keep the status quo of group dominance – ‘I won’t play anymore if my proxies aren’t back in the spotlight!’ – when they are already over-represented in games (and other media) as a whole is, frankly, sad.

Arkatrine.3182:

Leshain.6720:

Jus’ sayin it kinda ruined the experience for me…

What you mean how nearly every show, movie, video game, book, play, sport, ect. has done for women and girls all these years? I don’t agree with you at all, but I get where you’re coming from and why you’re frustrated. You know, considering this is kind of what I have to deal with on a daily basis with nearly every franchise.

It’s not your fault that the gaming industry has catered to you your whole life, but eventually you need to realize that it DOES cater to you. You are the target demographic. Typically many (not ALL) men don’t even notice when the scales are tipped in their favor because that’s how it’s always been. That’s what’s normal, and now that you’re presented with something that isn’t “normal” it’s strange, it’s frustrating, and you have a hard time relating to the cast.

I get that. But I don’t feel bad for you. I really don’t.

We finally get a story where women get to save the day, without needing to do it for the love of a man, with the help of a man, because a man told them. Where they don’t get to be props in their own story, where they don’t get killed to fuel a man’s story and a man is the bumbling “damsel” in distress. We get a story a woman is a super villain that builds an army, takes over a major city, tries (and succeeds) to wake a dragon and will probably end up indirectly destroying the world.

We finally got that. It might not have been perfect, but we got it and I love it. And you don’t like it because there are too many girls and it’s apparently impossible for you to relate with one. Well I’ll tell you the same thing women get told every time they bring up this same discussion about male dominated games: Deal with it. Get over it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Don’t like it, don’t play it. It makes sense in the lore. Why does it matter? No one’s making you play the game. Life isn’t fair. Stop playing games and get back in the kitchen.

Well said!

Lasica.5068:

Leshain.6720:

Conclusion: To be fair you missed my point entirely. My point is “Balance” not dominance.

The only time this cry for “balance” seems to come up is when there are more female characters in a game.

Do you know how many of the top 25 games released last year had females as the main characters? One single solitary game (Tomb Raider). Where were the cries for balance then?

And here we have GW2 with a higher than normal proportion of female NPCs (not even main characters, as your character is arguably the hero of the story, but in a cast of side characters) and suddenly it becomes “Oh no, where are the male characters, won’t somebody think about the balance. Please add male characters so we can relate to them.”

Well said. If I were to specifically choose games to play with characters I could relate to based on my gender, I wouldn’t play games at all. This last Tomb Raider game is one of the rare few where you have a female protagonist. Nearly every other good, story-driven game has more male then female characters. (Few on my mind: Bio-shock series, Half Life series, Wolf Among Us, Walking Dead, etc.)

I just learned to ignore it and enjoy the story as a whole, instead of dwelling on how many females are there in comparison to males.

Arena Net never made those games nor have they anything to do with Guild Wars 2, so it is kinda irrelevant what happens with them.

Aedelric.1287:

Laurelinde.4395:

Why do some guys have so much trouble relating to women, real or fictional? We are people. It will not kill you or hurt you or diminish you to put yourselves in our shoes once in awhile, I promise.

Just people, like you.

No I do not find the female leads relatable, but I do not find the males of the living story relatable either.

Do not try making it out as someone elses failing because you personally think they are being closed minded. The whole point of a character being relatable is to have similar aspects to them you find reflected in yourself, obviously hurdle one is race, then sex then personality.

The issue here is variety of characters, literally zero female and male characters I find relatable, Braham himself is a complete idiot. We need some new characters and asking for a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

This entire post is extremely accurate, I do not understand where all these upset lady gamers are comin’ from, i asked for a simple balance in the poorly written cast of season 1 character to change in season 2 and suddenly that is a problem? Touchy.

Also ~

asking for a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead

competent male lead

competent male

^ That is all i am asking for, just a single competent male lead for season 2, it doesn’t even need to be balanced in terms of numbers since i would prefer one amazing well designed and written character in this game that isn’t pathetic or evil like the other male cast. Why so serious?

As I’m sure others have pointed out already, but the more voices the more it is heard:

In nearly any other game you have a major cast of many many male characters. There are often token (and sometimes well-built) female characters, but there are very few. Now we get into the part where numbers and representation matters.

Men can see other men in the media wherever they look: the extremely vast majority of films and games and even many books have male protagonists. The issue of representation might be applicable to GW2 if it was the opposite case, but it’s not. There are enough men in the media. I, for one, find it refreshing to see a large number of good women characters in GW2 (or just women characters) because other games do not have this. GW2 does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation to other games. And newsflash, folks: women enjoy many games with a large majority of male protagonists! Many also have a problem with it, so they write threads like this one except their thread could be applied to almost any other game.

But…but…there’s TOO MANY women in GW2! The scales are skewed! There should be complete equality!
Uh…I don’t think you understand what’s going on in popular culture and in the media and generally in our western society, do you? Ideally, there should be overall an equal representation of race and gender and sexual orientation in popular media. There’s not. So, to help it along, you make shows and games like the others except you make the majority of them women or POC or LGBTQA-etc., or something else. Because you know what? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an all-male cast. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with a majority all-female cast. It gives women the variety in representation they need, because otherwise we’d have the ‘femme-fatale’ or the ‘shy, smart, and clutzy’ tropes being the only representations of women. To tip the scales back into balance, we need games like GW2 where the scales are tipped the other direction for a change. If you want a strong male lead, look at literally any other game or piece of media. Give women a place to be represented in a variety of ways for a change.

As to the characterization of all of the characters in the Living Story, that’s a different story.

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

As I’m sure others have pointed out already, but the more voices the more it is heard:

In nearly any other game you have a major cast of many many male characters. There are often token (and sometimes well-built) female characters, but there are very few. Now we get into the part where numbers and representation matters.

Men can see other men in the media wherever they look: the extremely vast majority of films and games and even many books have male protagonists. The issue of representation might be applicable to GW2 if it was the opposite case, but it’s not. There are enough men in the media. I, for one, find it refreshing to see a large number of good women characters in GW2 (or just women characters) because other games do not have this. GW2 does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation to other games. And newsflash, folks: women enjoy many games with a large majority of male protagonists! Many also have a problem with it, so they write threads like this one except their thread could be applied to almost any other game.

But…but…there’s TOO MANY women in GW2! The scales are skewed! There should be complete equality!
Uh…I don’t think you understand what’s going on in popular culture and in the media and generally in our western society, do you? Ideally, there should be overall an equal representation of race and gender and sexual orientation in popular media. There’s not. So, to help it along, you make shows and games like the others except you make the majority of them women or POC or LGBTQA-etc., or something else. Because you know what? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an all-male cast. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with a majority all-female cast. It gives women the variety in representation they need, because otherwise we’d have the ‘femme-fatale’ or the ‘shy, smart, and clutzy’ tropes being the only representations of women. To tip the scales back into balance, we need games like GW2 where the scales are tipped the other direction for a change. If you want a strong male lead, look at literally any other game or piece of media. Give women a place to be represented in a variety of ways for a change.

As to the characterization of all of the characters in the Living Story, that’s a different story.

I’m of the exact opposite opinion. I think games should exist in a “vacuum” so to speak, or more accurately, simply that individual games should be their own entities and not be weighed against every other game in existence. The idea that there’s some grand “scorecard” of games and game X needs to skew its own balance to make up for the fact that game Y had a skewed balance in the other directly is silly to me. Why should completely different companies and individuals all be required to account for one another in some giant industry “scale”?

Leshain.6720:

This entire post is extremely accurate, I do not understand where all these upset lady gamers are comin’ from, i asked for a simple balance in the poorly written cast of season 1 character to change in season 2 and suddenly that is a problem? Touchy.

Also ~

asking for a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead

competent male lead

competent male

^ That is all i am asking for, just a single competent male lead for season 2, it doesn’t even need to be balanced in terms of numbers since i would prefer one amazing well designed and written character in this game that isn’t pathetic or evil like the other male cast. Why so serious?

Please, please do not try to fall back on the ‘ladiez be emotional, lol!’ cliche as an ‘argument’ in support of your position. “Why so serious?” You tell me, you started the thread. Why is lack of male representation something for Arenanet to address, but lack of female representation in games just a joke, just uptight emotional ‘lady gamers’ (we’re just gamers, by the way) having a problem?

As I responded to the quoted post, some people are asking for female leads to be removed. There are current threads and posts suggesting Marjory be killed and/or turned into a man (thereby putting men back into the spotlight and neatly avoiding that whole messy LGBTQ representation issue), and killing off Taimi and questioning her place in the story. I seem to recall plenty of ‘get rid of/kill off Kiel’ sentiment as well (because she’s boring, which I don’t dispute), and an awful lot of people were baying for Scarlet’s head from the outset (mainly because she was, honestly, rather terrible.) You personally may think having lots of female leads is peachy groovy, but please do not pretend like all the people objecting are having some kind of shared hallucination. It is happening. I promise, I’m not being ‘hysterical.’

Fundamentally, why do you ‘need more men’? Does having more women in the story somehow diminish it? And if so, could the problem lie…well, not with Arenanet or ‘lady gamers’? Is equality only something worth fighting for when you feel that you, personally, are somehow getting the short end of the stick? And then it’s not so much fighting for equality, as fighting for the biggest piece of the pie, when the rest of the world is already stuck sharing the crumbs.

There is so much hypocrisy in these kinds of threads, because I sincerely doubt that the vast majority of the ‘need more male representation’ crowd have been equally vocal in clamoring for equal representation of women, people of color, disabled people, etc. in other games, books, films or media. Go post some support, sign some petitions, donate to minority-oriented crowdsourcing for equal representation of women/PoC/LGBTQ on other media of interest and then get back to me about how important equality is to you. I’ll be waiting here, not holding my breath.

My my my, so protective of the gender imbalance, aren’t we? I was simply referring to the fact that Destiny’s Edge 2.0 is comprised: 1 male to 4 females. Seems unlikely that no males are suitable for the role. So, what am I saying? I am saying that there is nothing “wrong” here it just feels unlikely.

Braham has enough Bro to be two and a half men.

I’m not too worried.

Laurelinde.4395:

Why is lack of male representation something for Arenanet to address, but lack of female representation in games just a joke, just uptight emotional ‘lady gamers’ (we’re just gamers, by the way) having a problem?

Because this is their game, so yes it is something for them to address if players take issue with it, regardless of if it was a male or female focused issue.

Fundamentally, why do you ‘need more men’? Does having more women in the story somehow diminish it? And if so, could the problem lie…well, not with Arenanet or ‘lady gamers’? Is equality only something worth fighting for when you feel that you, personally, are somehow getting the short end of the stick? And then it’s not so much fighting for equality, as fighting for the biggest piece of the pie, when the rest of the world is already stuck sharing the crumbs.

I’m slightly confused with this argument, as the exact reverse could be argued as to why having more women than men and not equal numbers is important to you specifically.

There is so much hypocrisy in these kinds of threads, because I sincerely doubt that the vast majority of the ‘need more male representation’ crowd have been equally vocal in clamoring for equal representation of women, people of color, disabled people, etc. in other games, books, films or media. Go post some support, sign some petitions, donate to minority-oriented crowdsourcing for equal representation of women/PoC/LGBTQ on other media of interest and then get back to me about how important equality is to you. I’ll be waiting here, not holding my breath.

This is ultimately the comment that made me log in to respond to you, fighting for one cause because it affects you and not other causes because they don’t affect you does not make you a hypocrite or in any way wrong for doing so, I would argue hypocrisy would be if you fought for one cause and vehemently opposed similar causes, something I would argue you are doing in this thread by making it seem as though these men are somehow doing something wrong in not liking the skewed representation when you personally do not seem to like it when it occurs the other way around.

Just because you don’t fight actively for other causes regarding equality does not make your comments less valid or invalid and, all of these forms of inequality you listed clearly should not occur and it is a shame they do.

However, for example, just because a male over female inequality occurs and has occured for some time, does not make it right for the complete opposite to happen, that would still not be equality.

Jack.5012:

This is ultimately the comment that made me log in to respond to you, fighting for one cause because it affects you and not other causes because they don’t affect you does not make you a hypocrite or in any way wrong for doing so, I would argue hypocrisy would be if you fought for one cause and vehemently opposed similar causes, something I would argue you are doing in this thread by making it seem as though these men are somehow doing something wrong in not liking the skewed representation when you personally do not seem to like it when it occurs the other way around.

Just because you don’t fight actively for other causes regarding equality does not make your comments less valid or invalid and, all of these forms of inequality you listed clearly should not occur and it is a shame they do.

However, for example, just because a male over female inequality occurs and has occured for some time, does not make it right for the complete opposite to happen, that would still not be equality.

Agreed

I personally don’t see it as an issue at all.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never had much of a problem relating to characters of any gender, provided they’re written well enough that I’m able to emphasize and feel for them o:

It might just be because the large majority of games I’ve played haven’t had female characters in leading roles within them, so maybe I just learned to relate to characters of the opposite gender, although I’m inclined not to agree with that. I believe good writing makes characters relatable regardless. I know not everyone agrees, but the bi-conics all have pretty distinct personalities, in my eyes. We know their aims or aspirations and if asked how one of them would react in a certain situation, I think most people could come up with a reasonable in-character guess. Different characters interact with each other in different ways, Rox and Braham have more of a ‘bro’ friendship going on, whereas Taimi and Braham seem to have more of a teasing brother/sister kind of relationship. I feel I can relate to Braham just as much as I can relate to Kasmeer or Taimi and him being male doesn’t change that one bit, so I’m not so sure why having a majorly female cast would make them less relatable to some people.

As characters the four of them shouldn’t be overlooked and just discounted as ‘too many females’ or ‘a gender imbalanced cast’, they all have their own personalities and goals, some are headstrong and confident, some are more subtle. I’d understand the complaints if every one of the bi-conic females had the same, damsel in distress style personality, but they don’t, Arenanet has built a pretty diverse cast of different characters from different backgrounds, with different motivations that work together and their gender shouldn’t make them any less interesting, I’m sure if the roles were reversed and it was 4 males to 1 female, this thread wouldn’t exist.

As others have said, it’s very refreshing to see well developed, strong female characters in leading roles that aren’t just there for sex appeal or as a ‘prize’ or someone to be rescued.

Electro.4173:

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

As I’m sure others have pointed out already, but the more voices the more it is heard:

In nearly any other game you have a major cast of many many male characters. There are often token (and sometimes well-built) female characters, but there are very few. Now we get into the part where numbers and representation matters.

Men can see other men in the media wherever they look: the extremely vast majority of films and games and even many books have male protagonists. The issue of representation might be applicable to GW2 if it was the opposite case, but it’s not. There are enough men in the media. I, for one, find it refreshing to see a large number of good women characters in GW2 (or just women characters) because other games do not have this. GW2 does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation to other games. And newsflash, folks: women enjoy many games with a large majority of male protagonists! Many also have a problem with it, so they write threads like this one except their thread could be applied to almost any other game.

But…but…there’s TOO MANY women in GW2! The scales are skewed! There should be complete equality!
Uh…I don’t think you understand what’s going on in popular culture and in the media and generally in our western society, do you? Ideally, there should be overall an equal representation of race and gender and sexual orientation in popular media. There’s not. So, to help it along, you make shows and games like the others except you make the majority of them women or POC or LGBTQA-etc., or something else. Because you know what? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an all-male cast. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with a majority all-female cast. It gives women the variety in representation they need, because otherwise we’d have the ‘femme-fatale’ or the ‘shy, smart, and clutzy’ tropes being the only representations of women. To tip the scales back into balance, we need games like GW2 where the scales are tipped the other direction for a change. If you want a strong male lead, look at literally any other game or piece of media. Give women a place to be represented in a variety of ways for a change.

As to the characterization of all of the characters in the Living Story, that’s a different story.

I’m of the exact opposite opinion. I think games should exist in a “vacuum” so to speak, or more accurately, simply that individual games should be their own entities and not be weighed against every other game in existence. The idea that there’s some grand “scorecard” of games and game X needs to skew its own balance to make up for the fact that game Y had a skewed balance in the other directly is silly to me. Why should completely different companies and individuals all be required to account for one another in some giant industry “scale”?

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Just because you want everything to exist within one, it doesn’t mean that they do. And if so, then what? We change LoTR to have female members of the Fellowship? We change Shoujo manga and anime to have an equal number of male characters? There’s nothing wrong with a piece of media that has an inequality, the problem is when the majority of media representations favor one view over all others. Perhaps my point on balance was ill-used, my point is that while a balance may not exist within a franchise, it should exist at large when one considers all franchises.

I’m not saying that GW2 is being weighted against other games. I’m saying that it exists within the context of western culture that cannot be ignored, ever. We can only ignore it once oppression and inequality stop existing, which appears to be no time soon. And even when such a fateful day does arrive, there’s still nothing wrong with gender imbalance in media as long as there is an alternative. For example, LoTR is not problematic when you take into account the existence of media that favors women instead of men. Then there’s good media that favors both, and some that favors one race over another, etc. Nobody complained that the Prince of Bel Air had bad representation because the majority (if not all) of the main actors were black. In fact, that’s part of the point: to represent a group that has not been adequately represented in mainstream media. Women and girls seeing many women being powerful or representing a variety of personality types displayed in the media gives them more confidence a lot of the time.

Kain Francois.4328:

Braham has enough Bro to be two and a half men.

I’m not too worried.

True, but that is still 2 to 4. Just saying :P

JGBarbarian.3579:

Jack.5012:

This is ultimately the comment that made me log in to respond to you, fighting for one cause because it affects you and not other causes because they don’t affect you does not make you a hypocrite or in any way wrong for doing so, I would argue hypocrisy would be if you fought for one cause and vehemently opposed similar causes, something I would argue you are doing in this thread by making it seem as though these men are somehow doing something wrong in not liking the skewed representation when you personally do not seem to like it when it occurs the other way around.

Just because you don’t fight actively for other causes regarding equality does not make your comments less valid or invalid and, all of these forms of inequality you listed clearly should not occur and it is a shame they do.

However, for example, just because a male over female inequality occurs and has occured for some time, does not make it right for the complete opposite to happen, that would still not be equality.

Agreed

Agreed.

I can’t believe people actually take note of this as an issue in the first place. So what if the biconics feature a lot of female characters? Would people complain if Canach had a bigger splotlight?

Personally, I think if there’s any issue, it’s the huge amount of skimpy Light armor. Come on, I wanted to play a White Mage, not a prostitute…

Y’know, students of Women & Gender studies will be writing essays about this thread.

Kain Francois.4328:

Would people complain if Canach had a bigger splotlight?

I actually quite like Canach, shame he does not have a bigger role in the living story, he is nowhere near as bland and useless as Braham.

I really don’t understand all the “hate” on Braham. For a 17 year old young, male Norn, he’s done pretty well for himself (and others).

Jack.5012:

Snipped for length

Apologies, I have had to cut out the quoting for space. For my initial question, you missed my point. I wasn’t asking ‘Why is male representation important’, I was asking why male representation important and female representation isn’t. The person to whom I was responding seemed baffled by ‘lady gamers’ being upset about representation issues, while posting in a thread wherein men are upset about representation issues. I understand that everyone wants to be and feel represented.

This leads to my second point. Of course women want to feel represented too. When you look at Guild Wars compared to games and media overall, Guild Wars is a tiny drop in the bucket of overwhelmingly male (and white, and straight) characters. I can bring up some stats from films, AAA game releases, television if you like, but in a nutshell, there is nothing like equal representation of varying groups. So it’s not simply how representation works out among individual titles, it’s about the larger pattern, the bigger picture.

Basically, if overall representation of people was pretty neutral and equal in the world, some all-men, all-women, all-whatever games/books/films would not be a problem. And, there are times when it is appropriate: I would expect a film about the front lines in WW1 to have few or no women, and a book about the experiences of nuns to feature few or no men. Unfortunately, when the ratios are as skewed as they are – when things are as unequal as they are in our world – it’s simply not comparing apples to apples.

Now, it’s not a zero-sum game; there is plenty of room in the world for all kinds of characters. But in terms of what gets the attention and the funding, there is some sharing to be done, and currently, some groups are hogging the toys. This is what my ‘pie’ argument addresses above. From where I sit, people asking for more representation of men are asking for even more pie while already holding the largest piece. The reverse is not true. Even if Guild Wars had only female characters from here on out for some reason, male characters would still dominate gaming as a whole.

Re: hypocrisy, there is opposition to diversifying characters, new or existing. There is lots of it. When people say ‘make Marjory a man’, ‘how can they make the new Spider-man black??’, ‘Anders wasn’t gay in Awakenings, change him back!‘, ’why would they put a girl elf in the Hobbit?’, the effect is to push for the erasure of disadvantaged people. And let’s not pretend that women, PoC, LGBTQ people, disabled people are not painted as whiny malcontents when there are campaigns to address this imbalance.

In the gaming world, there is a lot of resistance on the part of developers to create and promote female lead characters because ‘games with lead women don’t sell’. (Films are in the same position.) So if the big studios won’t take what they see as a risk in putting women in their media, and people go berserk when anyone tries to change an existing character by so much as a haircut, let alone a demographic change…where is all this diversity supposed to come from?

TLDR: pushback for absolute perfect and equal representation of the dominant group is not the same as a push for equal representation of disadvantaged groups. One has the whole weight and force of the status quo behind it, and one is pushing against that. The results will inevitably be much different.

I don’t like it. As a male I would like characters that I can identify with.

- Lots of female characters taking most the major roles
- Main relationships are all female
- Main antagonist is female
- The male character are poorly represented. Faren is an idiot, Braham is a dimwit, Evon has questionable ethics, Canach was basically a bad guy.

I’m a guy and I would like to see some males characters included that aren’t jokes. Two male characters that I did like they killed them off in the personal story.

Gender only plays a small part with relating to a character, in my opinion. I’m female and can relate to both the male and female characters of the story.

Can someone please list the reasons why they claim Braham is an idiot across the entirety of the living story? Faren I can see why people can think that of him, (but people really do ignore his finer qualities and only press that one thing).

I personally never saw Canach as the “bad guy”. Ultimately the actions he did were super terrible and thus deserves to be in jail, but his intentions were good. But if Canach being a bad guy or Evon having questionable ethics is poor representation, Scarlet being female and the main antagonist isn’t a great representation of females either. …Considering the fact she’s murdered tons of people and caused tons of destruction.

Laurelinde.4395:

For my initial question, you missed my point..

Apologies, I chose to not respond specifically to it, I agree that both are important, I was just pointing out that I think OP is discussing the GW franchise where ArenaNet are in charge and not gaming as a whole. I will go into this below.

This leads to my second point..

I agree that in the bigger picture women along with other groups are not equally represented in gaming, media, films, etc and yes that is wrong, however, I would argue that having inequal representation in GW2 does not help the bigger picture much at all and that having a fairly equal representation would, when fighting for equality, you do not want to go close to isolating half of the population, it is apparent not all men take issue with the uneven split, personally I do not, however I do understand the arguments of those who do and I would propose that having equal representation in GW2 and showing that people still play, enjoy and fund it would do more for equality in gaming than just using it as a tool to balance out the imbalances elsewhere by having the opposite uneven split.

Basically, if overall representation of people was pretty neutral..

I agree with this, if men decide things are uneven they probably will have an easier time pushing for it than women do and clearly that’s a problem, however so long as they only push for equal representation and not a male centred domination they’re not abusing that ability.

Now, it’s not a zero-sum game..

I agree male characters easily dominate gaming as a whole, but that’s arguably also still a representation of the old demographic, that we haven’t fully moved away from yet along with inequality, I would also say that having a bunch of female dominated games to balance out the male dominated ones is not really the best way to push for equality, fighting inequality with another inequality isn’t the best way to do it as not everyone looks at the bigger picture and thinks “Oh overall it’s balanced that’s ok”, they look at their own personal bubble, their community.

I would also propose that fighting one inequality with a series of reverse inequalities does not further equality as a whole it just pushes us further away from that being a possibility

Re: hypocrisy..

Now, I agree there is opposition to diversifying characters, however 3 of the examples you gave are opposition to change as a whole, not specific groups, people probably don’t want a black spiderman because he hasn’t been one and hasn’t been written as one, not just because he’s black, people didn’t want Anders to be gay because in the game they played, he wasn’t and they didn’t want the change, not just because he’s gay, and regarding the female elf in the hobbit, she as far as I can remember was not female in the book but that was a long time ago so I could be wrong, those three are examples, for the majority, of opposition of change, now of course some people will oppose them due to what they are, but I don’t think that’s the majority.

I can’t say much in response about the Marjory situation because I don’t actually understand the issue with her being a woman.

In the gaming world..

Yes in the gaming world and film there is a lot of resistance to create female leads because, they’re worried they won’t sell, but they’re also equally as resistant to new franchises, they are businesses and not equality activists unfortunately, they take risks they’re willing to take and I find it hard to knock them for that, the diversity comes from the people who are willing to take that risk and pushing for equality, pushing for how they want the world to be, not a reverse inequality, and it comes from people like you and myself refusing to purchase stereotypical games where, for example, the hero is a man who saves his damsel in distress and showing that we’re not interested in it anymore, it does not come from an inequality in the opposite direction.

TLDR..

TLDR: The OP is as far as I can tell, discussing the GW franchise not the bigger picture as a whole which could be a reason why they are a bit confused by your responses, pushback for equal representation by the dominant group is easier than the disadvantaged groups I agree, but inequality is inequality regardless of who is on top.

I hope I’ve managed to get my point across, I agree with you for the most part, I do however take issue with the fact that male over female inequality in places makes female over male inequality the way to go in the other places, I really think that pushing for equality by showing equality is profitable and enjoyable is the way forwards, thank you for taking the time to respond to my post in a constructive manner.

I had to cut your sentences short so that I could actually fit my responses in, I am responding to each paragraph as a whole however.

Almost every other game out there is the other way around, with a male cast and THE female char.
It’s a nice change.

Uh, this is an mmo…. it is suppose to attract the most people possible and be as balanced as possible in my humble opinion. Sheesh, you’d think those who are against this thread could at least be a bit more friendly rather than browbeating us.

Thobek.1730:

I don’t like it. As a male I would like characters that I can identify with.

- Lots of female characters taking most the major roles
- Main relationships are all female
- Main antagonist is female
- The male character are poorly represented. Faren is an idiot, Braham is a dimwit, Evon has questionable ethics, Canach was basically a bad guy.

I’m a guy and I would like to see some males characters included that aren’t jokes. Two male characters that I did like they killed them off in the personal story.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum, the standard catters to you (and me, I’m male). We have

- Lots of male characters taking most (if not all) of the major roles
- Main relationships are all male-female
- Main antagonist is male
- The female character are poorly represented. The women in the refrigerator or damsel in distress tropes are way too overused.

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

Edit: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9637-1
The abstract:
—————-
“This study examined male and female sexuality in video game characters. The top 20, best selling console (Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation2, and Nintendo GameCube) video games from the U.S. market for fiscal year 2003 were content analyzed. The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419) as hypothesized. In comparison to male characters, females were significantly more likely to be shown partially nude, featured with an unrealistic body image, and depicted wearing sexually revealing clothing and inappropriate attire as also predicted. Implications for these findings are discussed using social cognitive theory as a theoretical anchor.”
—————

It gets better, here’s some more
http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/5/815.short
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9307-0

We are so underrepresented, arent we?

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Almost every other game out there is the other way around, with a male cast and THE female char.
It’s a nice change.

I do not play every other game.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum.

…and gender is an issue because?

If gender were a real issue, then why are such a large porportion of male players playing female characters? Why do females play male characters?

I think the bigger question is why do we care?

Years ago, the profile of a gamer tended to be young, male, lots of free time, and social awkwardness of some level. Today, gamers in general come in all genders, income levels, education levels, ages, and time constraints. Public figures and celebrities, blue collar workers, management, and yes, the stereotypical kid in the basement all play games.

GuildWars 2 has brought to us a group of protagonists who just happen to be primarily female. We don’t know yet whether or not more males will be added to this group, although I am sure that these 5 are not going to be the only people we come into contact with in the upcoming chapters. They’re just the ones we are seeing right now.

Don’t forget that the NPCs seen in the PS, hearts, and just wandering around seem to be pretty well balanced.

I do admit that DE2.0 could be more balanced, as DE1.0 was (Logan, Snaff, and Rytlock are male, Zojja, Caithe and Eir are female.)

Who knows? maybe some of the other male characters will become more involved in the story. We can’t forget about Ho-bo-tron, Lord Farin (sp,) Canach, and Evon. They may come to the forefront later, and the numbers be reversed.

Raziel.4216:

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Almost every other game out there is the other way around, with a male cast and THE female char.
It’s a nice change.

I do not play every other game.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum.

Why should anything outside of Guild Wars affect what happens inside Guild Wars?

Are you saying I should be satisfied with inequality in the game I like just because games I do not play also have similar inequality?

Does not compute.

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Aedelric.1287:

Raziel.4216:

Almost every other game out there is the other way around, with a male cast and THE female char.
It’s a nice change.

I do not play every other game.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum.

Why should anything outside of Guild Wars affect what happens inside Guild Wars?

Are you saying I should be satisfied with inequality in the game I like just because games I do not play also have similar inequality?

Does not compute.

I’m saying that the game industry is filled with games that catter to males (male lead, girls are either a damsel in distress, some hot chick or the tough lara croft oversexualized kind)
I provided links to 4 research articles in my previous post, I suggest you read’em.

And I’ma quote someone else here

As I’m sure others have pointed out already, but the more voices the more it is heard:

In nearly any other game you have a major cast of many many male characters. There are often token (and sometimes well-built) female characters, but there are very few. Now we get into the part where numbers and representation matters.

Men can see other men in the media wherever they look: the extremely vast majority of films and games and even many books have male protagonists. The issue of representation might be applicable to GW2 if it was the opposite case, but it’s not. There are enough men in the media. I, for one, find it refreshing to see a large number of good women characters in GW2 (or just women characters) because other games do not have this. GW2 does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation to other games. And newsflash, folks: women enjoy many games with a large majority of male protagonists! Many also have a problem with it, so they write threads like this one except their thread could be applied to almost any other game.

But…but…there’s TOO MANY women in GW2! The scales are skewed! There should be complete equality!
Uh…I don’t think you understand what’s going on in popular culture and in the media and generally in our western society, do you? Ideally, there should be overall an equal representation of race and gender and sexual orientation in popular media. There’s not. So, to help it along, you make shows and games like the others except you make the majority of them women or POC or LGBTQA-etc., or something else. Because you know what? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an all-male cast. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with a majority all-female cast. It gives women the variety in representation they need, because otherwise we’d have the ‘femme-fatale’ or the ‘shy, smart, and clutzy’ tropes being the only representations of women. To tip the scales back into balance, we need games like GW2 where the scales are tipped the other direction for a change. If you want a strong male lead, look at literally any other game or piece of media. Give women a place to be represented in a variety of ways for a change.

As to the characterization of all of the characters in the Living Story, that’s a different story.

Re-read the bold part a few times
You’re saying “I want to ignore the rest of the world, GW2 exists in it’s own universe”, cant discuss much there.

Raziel.4216.

Guild Wars is a game not a political statement, are you telling me I do not deserve a new likeable and competent male lead to join the quite strong female cast because other games (That I have not played or have anything to do with) have a gender bias?

“ignore the rest of the world” you are partially right, I play Guild Wars and this is my community so as such it is where my interests are. Do you follow every aspect and decision made in the gaming world? Good for you if you do but it is exceptionally presumptuous of you to assume that I should.

I agree that the industry has not set a good standard but two wrongs does not make a right.

Aedelric.1287
Guild Wars is a game that’s part of a gaming culture that’s currently dominated by male leads.
Once again:

Men can see other men in the media wherever they look: the extremely vast majority of films and games and even many books have male protagonists. The issue of representation might be applicable to GW2 if it was the opposite case, but it’s not.

Why cant we play a game with a strong female lead instead of a male one? Ah that’s right, because the industry catters to us and when they dont it’s wrong, it’s not normal, we demand balance!

You dont have to follow every aspect and decision made in the gaming world to know it’s characteristics and understand that you can never ignore it.

If you cant understand that GW2 is part of the gaming culture and that this “problem” of yours is related to it then we’ll never get anywhere with this discussion.

Raziel.4216:

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

This is unfortunately a poor argument in this case because it’s firstly an assumption that you cannot prove correct for everyone, and also applies both ways, you fight for causes that effect you because you notice them easier, there is equally not really many women fighting for equality in GW2 because it’s in their favour.

Raziel.4216:

Why cant women we have a game with a strong female lead instead of a male one? Ah that’s right, because the industry catters to us and when they dont it’s wrong, it’s not normal, we demand balance!

This is again isn’t a good argument, it’s not a constructive argument, you’re saying something that could be argued both ways, inequality is inequality and is damaging to the fight for equality regardless of who is on top.

Also what’s wrong with having both a strong male and strong female lead exactly? Neither would be diminished by the other existing if written well enough.

I removed the rest of your post from my quote because in a post I made above I think I’ve pretty much responded to it in bolded text, so instead of re-writing it, I will politely ask that you read it.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

This is unfortunately a poor argument in this case because it’s firstly an assumption that you cannot prove correct for everyone, and also applies both ways, you fight for causes that effect you because you notice them easier, there is equally not really many women fighting for equality in GW2 because it’s in their favour.

I’m a guy “fighting” for equal representation of the other group, so no, it doesnt apply both ways.
Feminists support equal representation in videogames btw, but they aim for the videogame industry as a whole not each individual game

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Why cant women we have a game with a strong female lead instead of a male one? Ah that’s right, because the industry catters to us and when they dont it’s wrong, it’s not normal, we demand balance!

This is again isn’t a good argument, it’s not a constructive argument, you’re saying something that could be argued both ways, inequality is inequality and is damaging to the fight for equality regardless of who is on top.

I removed the rest of your post from my quote because in a post I made above I think I’ve pretty much responded to it in bolded text, so instead of re-writing it, I will politely ask that you read it.

Mmm let’s see, from the research article posted above
The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419)
That’s 85,6% male leads and 14,4% female leads.

Inequality is bad when it’s the standard, I dont want every game out there to have a balanced cast, because, once again, each game doesnt exist in it’s own unique, independant universe.
I want the overall game industry to have an equal amount of male and female casts, so no, you didnt refute it.

Raziel.4216:

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

This is unfortunately a poor argument in this case because it’s firstly an assumption that you cannot prove correct for everyone, and also applies both ways, you fight for causes that effect you because you notice them easier, there is equally not really many women fighting for equality in GW2 because it’s in their favour.

I’m a guy “fighting” for equal representation of the other group, so no, it doesnt apply both ways

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Why cant women we have a game with a strong female lead instead of a male one? Ah that’s right, because the industry catters to us and when they dont it’s wrong, it’s not normal, we demand balance!

This is again isn’t a good argument, it’s not a constructive argument, you’re saying something that could be argued both ways, inequality is inequality and is damaging to the fight for equality regardless of who is on top.

I removed the rest of your post from my quote because in a post I made above I think I’ve pretty much responded to it in bolded text, so instead of re-writing it, I will politely ask that you read it.

Mmm let’s see, from the research article posted above
The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419)
That’s 85,6% male leads and 14,4% female leads.

Inequality is bad when it’s the standard, I dont want every game out there to have a balanced cast, I want the overall game industry to have an equal amount of male and female casts, so no, you didnt refute it.

I would guess you didn’t bother reading the post I asked you to view over as you haven’t shown a sign of responding to it, and not only did you entirely miss both points I was making, you’ve said something which baffles me somewhat, Inequality is bad when it’s the standard but yet go on to argue that inequality is ok so long as it’s towards the male populace until some equilibrium is achieved where everyone has as many inequalities against them as everyone else therefore still encouraging inequality to be the standard, I really cannot understand how that is possibly equality or pushing for equality.

Especially when you’re currently telling people to leave this game if they want more male characters, go and buy a male dominated one, that is not a solution, a solution would be if you and everyone else against skewed representation just simply stopped buying those games until publishers realised it isn’t what people want, or proactively debating the subject on their forum.

In addition that study you’ve been quoting over and over is from 2003 if I read correctly, we’ve moved on since then in a more proactive manner.

As for the response to my first quote, yes it does apply both ways, that is a poor argument and you should not use it, women are equally not up in arms when men are being discriminated against as men are when women are being discriminated against.

I would like as many games/media/films to have equal representation as possible because that is equality, having it skewed one way or the other are both as bad as each other.

You are making out as if the men in this thread are doing something wrong for asking for equal representation, something that men often do to women when they do the same, two wrongs do not make it right if anything they just push us further away from what right is.

If you think I am somehow for the inequal representation of women, you are very much wrong, I am someone who will happily argue over that subject until equality is observed, however you cannot use some of the arguments you are using, specifically the ones I quoted before and expect to be taken seriously by men or women who disagree with you.

Raziel.4216:

Mmm let’s see, from the research article posted above
The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419)
That’s 85,6% male leads and 14,4% female leads.

and of course because somebody wrote it down on a peice of paper it must be a fantastic report and obviously 100% gospel worthy. Though if they’ve actually taken there figures from the 20 Top selling games well then you’d be aware that a handful of them are sporting games (I highly imagine not counted), and another large portion of them are war games. In which usually you play as a highly trained special ops team, and guess what? These are predominantly (if not entirely) made up of men.

In short, throwing links at debates? doesn’t make your points any more valid, especially when what you are saying is a counter to someone that is practically pointing out the definition of equality.

ShibVicious.9681:

Raziel.4216:

Mmm let’s see, from the research article posted above
The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419)
That’s 85,6% male leads and 14,4% female leads.

and of course because somebody wrote it down on a peice of paper it must be a fantastic report and obviously 100% gospel worthy. Though if they’ve actually taken there figures from the 20 Top selling games well then you’d be aware that a handful of them are sporting games (I highly imagine not counted), and another large portion of them are war games. In which usually you play as a highly trained special ops team, and guess what? These are predominantly (if not entirely) made up of men.

In short, throwing links at debates? doesn’t make your points any more valid, especially when what you are saying is a counter to someone that is practically pointing out the definition of equality.

Throwing random links? No
Throwing peer reviewed research articles from a gender-issues focused journal in a gender-issues topic? Yeah

Jack.5012:

You quoted a user saying this and bolded it saying it was important saying misrepresentation is only applicable to GW2 if it’s against women, so by extension you said this, and I would argue it contradicts what you say about not wanting inequality to be the standard, this comment is pretty much saying it’s ok because it’s men, but it wouldn’t be if it was women.[/b]

The group that’s already over-represented by the gaming industry (4.2 out of 5 by those numbers) can be underrepresented in order to give the spotlight to the ones already underrepresented by most of the industry

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Quote me saying that

If you want a strong male lead, look at literally any other game or piece of media

This is again something you said by extension, however I may well have misinterpreted it.

You did, saying that most of the industry catters to males so it’s ok for a game to catter to the minority is not telling’em to go buy another game

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Research indicates that men are already well represented, feminists want to raise their bar up to men. Like I said “Feminists support equal representation in videogames btw, but they aim for the videogame industry as a whole not each individual game”

Yes the video game industry as a whole would be a broken form of equal if all you had was a 50/50 split of inequalities, they want to raise the bar up to men yes, by having equality, not an inverse inequality to the current one.

Having some games catter to’em does not create an inverse inequality, if we had 4 out of 5 games do it your point would stannd.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

I would like the videogame, media and film INDUSTRY to have equal representation.

That’s what I meant when I said that, except my idea of equality clearly isn’t the same as yours.

Indeed

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

The videogame industry catters to men, unlike most of the industry (point backed by research) this game decided to include a female cast with fewer male leads (some people say they suck, I differ), we cant have that, can we?
The living story has more female leaders while the personal story had more male leads (2 out of 3 mentors, 3 out of 4 pact leaders)

We can, but it’s still not equality, so the people arguing for more male leads are just as valid as women fighting for more female leads in other franchises.

Really? You’re saying that the priviledged group, the target for the majority of the entertainment industry can argue for equal representation in one of the few exeptions that doesnt catter to’em?
That’s really screwed up, let me give you some examples with other minorities:
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have white protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists black, the people arguing for more white leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more black leads in other franchises.
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have straight protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists gay, the people arguing for more straight leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more gay leads in other franchises.

That’s just ridiculous.

Jack.5012:

I cut out your study because I didn’t have the text space to respond with it still in, I would still argue that other factors could still be in play as to why you might get those disparities for male/female characters, for example the demographic is still largely male, I would also argue that having big burly males that are out to save the day all the time is still a stereotype some men dislike and like the women who currently dislike their stereotypical roles in gaming, would like removed.

We could argue other factors, but I stick to research.

Raziel.4216:

The group that’s already over-represented by the gaming industry (4.2 out of 5 by those numbers) can be underrepresented in order to give the spotlight to the ones already underrepresented by most of the industry

That’s not equality, that’s just another inequality.

Raziel.4216:

You did, saying that most of the industry catters to males so it’s ok for a game to catter to the minority is not telling’em to go buy another game

Apologies, I took it as you telling them to “look elsewhere”.

Raziel.4216:

Having some games catter to’em does not create an inverse inequality, if we had 4 out of 5 games do it your point would stannd.

The inverse inequality exists in a case by case basis, if we had 1/2 games with male discrimination and 1/2 games with female discrimination and none with actual equality being pushed, that’s still not really equality is it?

Raziel.4216:

Really? You’re saying that the priviledged group, the target for the majority of the entertainment industry can argue for equal representation in one of the few exeptions that doesnt catter to’em?
That’s really screwed up, let me give you some examples with other minorities:
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have white protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists black, the people arguing for more white leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more black leads in other franchises.
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have straight protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists gay, the people arguing for more straight leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more gay leads in other franchises.

That’s just ridiculous.

That’s exactly what I’m saying, it’s not messed up, that is what equality is, one group is not more important than the other groups in terms of their rights to pursue what they consider to be inequality.

Raziel.4216:

We could argue other factors, but I stick to research.

Good for you, and I am arguing your research has flaws.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

The group that’s already over-represented by the gaming industry (4.2 out of 5 by those numbers) can be underrepresented in order to give the spotlight to the ones already underrepresented by most of the industry

That’s not equality, that’s just another inequality.

I think you dont understand the concept of social priviledge.
http://teddykw2.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/encyclopedia-of-communication-theory.pdf
Page 798.
The priviledged group can be underrepresented.
And noone is saying we need 4 out of 5 games to catter to females.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Having some games catter to’em does not create an inverse inequality, if we had 4 out of 5 games do it your point would stannd.

The inverse inequality exists in a case by case basis, if we had 1/2 games with male discrimination and 1/2 games with female discrimination and none with actual equality being pushed, that’s still not really equality is it?

No it doesnt exist in a case by case basis, it exists on the industry. You’re saying you cant catter to a specific group, well you have to, you cant represent every single human minority in every videogame.
For example: Mass effect was considered a very inclusive franchise because the protagonist could be white, black, in-between mixes, male or female and you could have straight or homosexual relationships, but you couldnt have a transgender sheppard, so it’s discriminating agaisnt’em?

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Really? You’re saying that the priviledged group, the target for the majority of the entertainment industry can argue for equal representation in one of the few exeptions that doesnt catter to’em?
That’s really screwed up, let me give you some examples with other minorities:
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have white protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists black, the people arguing for more white leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more black leads in other franchises.
Let’s say 4 out of 5 games have straight protagonists, one game decides to make most of it’s protagonists gay, the people arguing for more straight leads would be just as valid as the others fighting for more gay leads in other franchises.

That’s just ridiculous.

That’s exactly what I’m saying, it’s not messed up, that is what equality is, one group is not more important than the other groups in terms of their rights to pursue what they consider to be inequality.

Read the concept of social priviledge, the priviledged group can be underrepresented to give the spotlight to those who lack priviledge.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

We could argue other factors, but I stick to research.

Good for you, and I am arguing your research has flaws.

Right, research that doesnt support your position is obviously flawed by causes that you can make up on the spot.
Well if I followed that logic every research would be flawed.

Sigh. The fact of the matter is the thread is about an inequality amongst the characters in Guild Wars 2 not the video game industry as a whole. Which means your “peer reviewed research articles from a gender-issues focused journal” mean diddly-squat.
Especially seeing as there was no reason what-so-ever to throw them out there anyways, because EVERYBODY already knows that there are more male characters in video games as a whole, you don’t need a questionable research article to get that point across.

Also if you read the OP, whilst he does point out that there are more female characters, his main problem is that he feels the male characters suck, and that he’d be happy with SOME good male characters. Not that he’d be happy if we oversaturated the game with male characters.

ShibVicious.9681:

Sigh. The fact of the matter is the thread is about an inequality amongst the characters in Guild Wars 2 not the video game industry as a whole. Which means your “peer reviewed research articles from a gender-issues focused journal” mean diddly-squat.
Especially seeing as there was no reason what-so-ever to throw them out there anyways, because EVERYBODY already knows that there are more male characters in video games as a whole, you don’t need a questionable research article to get that point across.

Also if you read the OP, whilst he does point out that there are more female characters, his main problem is that he feels the male characters suck, and that he’d be happy with SOME good male characters. Not that he’d be happy if we oversaturated the game with male characters.

Last time I checked video games dont exist in a vacuum, they are part of a sub-culture.
So research focused on that culture doesnt mean diddly-squat.

Raziel.4216:

Guild Wars is a game that’s part of a gaming culture that’s currently dominated by male leads.

I think we all know this already.

Raziel.4216:

Why cant we play a game with a strong female lead instead of a male one? Ah that’s right, because the industry catters to us and when they dont it’s wrong, it’s not normal, we demand balance!

I never asked for the female leads to go, so what is the issue here? As for other games, I do not play them, if you do then please by all means go make a complaint on their forums.

Raziel.4216:

You dont have to follow every aspect and decision made in the gaming world to know it’s characteristics and understand that you can never ignore it.

I do not pretend it does not exist but it affects games I do not play or even have the slightest interest in, so why should I actively do anything about it? Beyond posting in a forum what do you do?

Raziel.4216:

If you cant understand that GW2 is part of the gaming culture and that this “problem” of yours is related to it then we’ll never get anywhere with this discussion.

You are verging on the condescending here, I think it best we stop talking to each other at this point.

Raziel.4216:

Thobek.1730:

I don’t like it. As a male I would like characters that I can identify with.

- Lots of female characters taking most the major roles
- Main relationships are all female
- Main antagonist is female
- The male character are poorly represented. Faren is an idiot, Braham is a dimwit, Evon has questionable ethics, Canach was basically a bad guy.

I’m a guy and I would like to see some males characters included that aren’t jokes. Two male characters that I did like they killed them off in the personal story.

GW2 doesnt exist in a vacuum, the standard catters to you (and me, I’m male). We have

- Lots of male characters taking most (if not all) of the major roles
- Main relationships are all male-female
- Main antagonist is male
- The female character are poorly represented. The women in the refrigerator or damsel in distress tropes are way too overused.

How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.

Edit: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9637-1
The abstract:
—————-
“This study examined male and female sexuality in video game characters. The top 20, best selling console (Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation2, and Nintendo GameCube) video games from the U.S. market for fiscal year 2003 were content analyzed. The 60 video games yielded a total of 489 separate characters with an identifiable sex for coding. Chi-square analyses indicated that female characters (n?=?70) were underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts (n?=?419) as hypothesized. In comparison to male characters, females were significantly more likely to be shown partially nude, featured with an unrealistic body image, and depicted wearing sexually revealing clothing and inappropriate attire as also predicted. Implications for these findings are discussed using social cognitive theory as a theoretical anchor.”
—————

It gets better, here’s some more
http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/5/815.short
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9307-0

We are so underrepresented, arent we?

People like you give me hope for humanity

Raziel.4216:

The priviledged group can be underrepresented.
And noone is saying we need 4 out of 5 games to catter to females.

And you don’t understand the concept of privelege either or why it was brought up initially, privelege is the idea that if you are priveleged, you use that to combat inequality.

Raziel.4216:

No it doesnt exist in a case by case basis, it exists on the industry. You’re saying you cant catter to a specific group, well you have to, you cant represent every single human minority in every videogame.
For example: Mass effect was considered a very inclusive franchise because the protagonist could be white, black, in-between mixes, male or female and you could have straight or homosexual relationships, but you couldnt have a transgender sheppard, so it’s discriminating agaisnt’em?

It exists in both a case by case basis and an industry basis, neither should be ignored, just as equality on a world scale should be evaluated case by case along with global scale otherwise you just have a bunch of inequalities adding up to one very strange definition of equality.

And they aren’t equally represented in that game no, and it would be their right to fight for equal representation in said game, I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.

Obviously you can’t represent every minority as much as each other all the time, due to for example human error, you simply forgot one, not due to discrimination specifically, we’re not discussing that though, we’re discussing equal gender representation in GW2.

Raziel.4216:

Read the concept of social priviledge, the priviledged group can be underrepresented to give the spotlight to those who lack priviledge.

That still is by definition not equality.

Raziel.4216:

Right, research that doesnt support your position is obviously flawed by causes that you can make up on the spot.
Well if I followed that logic every research would be flawed.

There is very rarely research with zero flaws in it, to think otherwise is to be honest ridiculous, and to claim that I only call it flawed because it “disagrees” with me is equally so, I said it was flawed and listed possible reasons as to why those disparities occur outside of what they claim, I’m arguing with the claim in the article because I am allowed to.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

The priviledged group can be underrepresented.
And noone is saying we need 4 out of 5 games to catter to females.

And you don’t understand the concept of privelege either or why it was brought up initially, privelege is the idea that if you are priveleged, you use that to combat inequality.

No, dude first paragraph:
those who are socially privileged are rarely explicitly self-conscious of the nature of their privilege or willing to examine their privilege because they see their state as natural and normal. This lack of self-consciousness and examination of privilege shifts the locus of inequality analysis to attributes and behaviors of those who are defined as disadvantaged in some way.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

No it doesnt exist in a case by case basis, it exists on the industry. You’re saying you cant catter to a specific group, well you have to, you cant represent every single human minority in every videogame.
For example: Mass effect was considered a very inclusive franchise because the protagonist could be white, black, in-between mixes, male or female and you could have straight or homosexual relationships, but you couldnt have a transgender sheppard, so it’s discriminating agaisnt’em?

It exists in both a case by case basis and an industry basis, neither should be ignored, just as equality on a world scale should be evaluated case by case along with global scale otherwise you just have a bunch of inequalities adding up to one very strange definition of equality.

And they aren’t equally represented in that game no, and it would be their right to fight for equal representation in said game, I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.

The case-by-case basis is too idealistic, that’s why feminists aim for the industry.
You can have 50 games catter to the typical white male gamer, but have an equal (or somewhat equal) ammount that catters to the other races and genders.

Jack.5012:

Obviously you can’t represent every minority as much as each other all the time, due to for example human error, you simply forgot one, not due to discrimination specifically, we’re not discussing that though, we’re discussing equal gender representation in GW2.

Bold part pretty much tells me that case-by-case is imposible

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Read the concept of social priviledge, the priviledged group can be underrepresented to give the spotlight to those who lack priviledge.

That still is by definition not equality.

Your answer tells me that you didnt read it.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Right, research that doesnt support your position is obviously flawed by causes that you can make up on the spot.
Well if I followed that logic every research would be flawed.

There is very rarely research with zero flaws in it, to think otherwise is to be honest ridiculous, and to claim that I only call it flawed because it “disagrees” with me is equally so, I said it was flawed and listed possible reasons as to why those disparities occur, I’m arguing with the claim in the article because I am allowed to.

[/quote]
Sure no research article is perfect, but the point you made doesnt refute it’s findings, which dont support your position.

Raziel.4216:

No, dude first paragraph:
those who are socially privileged are rarely explicitly self-conscious of the nature of their privilege or willing to examine their privilege because they see their state as natural and normal. This lack of self-consciousness and examination of privilege shifts the locus of inequality analysis to attributes and behaviors of those who are defined as disadvantaged in some way.

That is not “The priviledged group can be underrepresented.”, I didn’t actually see that. I also don’t really see the relevancy to it in relation to what I said initially.

Raziel.4216:

The case-by-case basis is too idealistic, that’s why feminists aim for the industry.
You can have 50 games catter to the typical white male gamer, but have an equal (or somewhat equal) ammount that catters to the other races and genders.

It’s definitely not too idealistic, and feminists aim at both the industry due to that generally being more noticeable, and a case by case basis as well.

Raziel.4216:

Bold part pretty much tells me that case-by-case is imposible

How so? You can evaluate case by case and do you best to represent equality in all situations, then look at the bigger picture in combination with that, how is that impossible?

Raziel.4216:

Your answer tells me that you didnt read it.

My answer was a direct response to what you wrote in your thread, not the things you’ve linked.

Raziel.4216:

Sure no research article is perfect, but the point you made doesnt refute it’s findings, which dont support your position.

I’m still confused as to how those findings don’t support an objective equality for both men and women, not just one sided, as that’s my position, as I’ve implied previously in the thread, my position is equality for both parties, not one way or the other, in a case by case basis in combination with the bigger picture.

I don’t want men to be more priveleged, nor women, I would like both equally represented, and as I’ve said multiple times, the people arguing they want more male characters are just as valid.

And with that I am done debating with you, thank you for raising the points you raised and generally being respectful of what I was saying, I’ve learned a lot about your point of view, and I would hope you have mine, however I am currently in need of sleep, so I will be unable to respond to you anymore, thank you.

Jack.5012:

That is not “The priviledged group can be underrepresented.”, I didn’t actually see that. I also don’t really see the relevancy to it in relation to what I said initially.

Also: "In a paper she authored in 1988, McIntosh began by noting the intractability of male privilege, that is, the resistance of many men to close examination of their privilege even when they might be sympathetic to and supportive of gender equality. She came to recognize that social hierarchies are, to use her word, interlocking, which led her to an examination of White privilege as a racial benefit and her own White privilege as an everyday set of unexamined assumptions. McIntosh offered a long list of daily effects of White privilege that she enjoyed, such as “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed,” and “I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit my cultural traditions, and into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.”

When women go to a store, do they experience the same stuff?

A priviledged group that’s the target of 84.4% of the industry (that study may be old, but the other ones are from 2007, 2009, 2011 & 2014 and it’s not that much better, feel free to provide one to disprove my point) cant claim they’re underrepresented because less than 1 out of 5 games doesnt catter to’em.
That’s why “the people arguing for more male leads are just as valid as women fighting for more female leads in other franchises.” no, because 84% of the industry doesnt catter to women.
If I have 84% of the food, can I argue for more just as much as those who have 16%?
If I own 84% of an industry, should I pay the same taxes as those who have 16%?
There’s no situation where such a favored group could make a claim for more that’s just as valid as the underrepresented group’s.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

The case-by-case basis is too idealistic, that’s why feminists aim for the industry.
You can have 50 games catter to the typical white male gamer, but have an equal (or somewhat equal) ammount that catters to the other races and genders.

It’s definitely not too idealistic, and feminists aim at both the industry due to that generally being more noticeable, and a case by case basis as well.

My mass effect example can be expanded even more.
Sheppard cant be in a wheelchair, can they fight for inclusion?
There’re no cancer patients in this game, are we discriminating’em?
There’s no black transgender gay love in this game, are we discriminating’em?

Case by case is, once again, too idealistic.

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Bold part pretty much tells me that case-by-case is imposible

How so? You can evaluate case by case and do you best to represent equality in all situations, then look at the bigger picture in combination with that, how is that impossible?

Example b4 this quote shows how that is imposible.
What if I want to make a game for black lesbians, do I have to include asians, latinos, whites and every other race/gender/sexual orientation out there?
No, the industry should be broad enough to make games for everyone

Jack.5012:

Raziel.4216:

Sure no research article is perfect, but the point you made doesnt refute it’s findings, which dont support your position.

I’m still confused as to how those findings don’t support an objective equality for both men and women, not just one sided, as that’s my position, as I’ve implied previously in the thread, my position is equality for both parties, not one way or the other, in a case by case basis in combination with the bigger picture.

You claim “In addition that study you’ve been quoting over and over is from 2003 if I read correctly, we’ve moved on since then in a more proactive manner.”
My other links (2007, 2009, 2011 and this last one from 2014) prove otherwise.

Jack.5012:

I don’t want men to be more priveleged, nor women, I would like both equally represented, and as I’ve said multiple times, the people arguing they want more male characters are just as valid.

Right, the target of 4 out of 5 games can argue for inclusion into that 1 game that doesnt include’em just as much as those who’re in 1 out of 5 games.
The reply to a previous quote shows how ridiculous this is.

This will be my last reply unless your next post brings something new.
I’ve provided research to back up my claims and disprove yours.
I’ve pointed out (more than once) that your approach is too idealistic, I’ve given you examples with different situations, none of which have been debunked.
I’m tired of saying the same thing over and over, I hope your next reply brings something new, if not, good day sir.

Have you ever read an awesome fantasy novel written by a bureaucratic accountant? Because that is what you’ll get if you insist on balancing out the numbers/screentime rather than just letting a story flow naturally.