Becky Chambers:
So, here’s a question: why are female video game protagonists so rare? Their absence is palpable, and we talk often of how we want to see more of them, but the why of it is typically addressed with generalizations about target audiences and a lack of women in game development. Penny Arcade Report senior editor Ben Kuchera wanted better answers than that, so he did what any red-blooded gamer would do — he found some numbers to crunch.
As detailed in an editorial earlier this week, Kuchera contacted Geoffrey Zatkin, Chief Operating Officer of EEDAR, essentially the market research firm for the gaming industry. They looked at a sample of 669 action games, shooters, and RPGs, all taken from the seventh-generation console cycle (that’s Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii — in other words, everything in the last seven years). Less than 300 games in their sample had the option of a female lead. As for female only leads…a whopping 24.
This could be fun as they make great tables. Go big or go extinct. Prime your senses for a neural handshake and step into the cockpit of a Jaeger. It is on you to cancel the apocalypse when Pacific Rim Pinball comes to Pinball FX on May 16.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
Perhaps it just goes to show that our "creative and artistic" game developers aren't as artistic as they think, since they're utterly incapable of creating a female lead that's remotely interesting to women or to men.
Thing is, the majority of female gamers (and this includes Farmville-rs, Hangins with Friends-ers, etc) are not at all interested in a story. They don't care. It does't matter if the lead is male, female, or a garbage can. Most female gamers simply do not care. And yes, I'm aware that there are some women out there who love Final Fantasy 10, or Kingdom Hearts, or Phoenix Wright, or Halo, or Red Dead Redemption, or whatever. But I'm talking about the majority of women.
You don't believe me? Over the past 15 years, what games have exploded in popularity with women? The Sims? No story. Roller Coaster Tycoon? No story. Nintendogs? No story. Mario Kart? No story. The aforementioned Farmville? No story. Wii Fit? Wii Sports? Just Dance? Guitar Hero and Rock Band?
I think there's an edge not examined in the article, but that I think could be an important part of this. Of the games with female only leads, how many people have accused the developers of doing nothing but appealing to the male market? How many people have become offended because they aren't able to differentiate a "bad" character with an attractive one?
How many people believe that a young beautiful girl, trapped on a island with a lot of bad men, isn't at risk of rape and that hinting at that makes her a weaker character?
These are issues that don't crop up with male characters, and female gamers, largely, are happy to play as men so long as the story is good. If you can have all the benefits without any of the negatives, the only problem is in people saying "where are all the female leads?"
So long as the games are good, the majority don't give a damn.
*facepalm* Another of these articles. *sigh*
Tomb Raider sells pretty well.
Rockstar should do a GTA with a main female protagonist, it would sell.
the first problem is the industry and gaming as a whole is male dominated
i love games with female protagonists they are some of my favs but
problem #2 sexuality plays too big a role in games with or without female protagonists
i love bayonetta
i love tomb raider
i love bloodrayne i love them for the fun factor
it's not wrong to have a nice looking female protagonist but the go haywire and focus on the eyecandy and sexuality ( IN SOME CASES) and not enough into a great story and fun gameplay.
remember the days when female protagonist boobs didnt jiggle and bounce? now its all over the place.
in the above series i mentioned
rayne boobs jiggled
bayonetta inappropriately dressed ( at least not moderately dressed) and was HIGHLY sexual
just the other day while playing tomb raider trilogy on cutscenes laras boobs jiggled when theyed be easily noticed but didnt jiggle during basic things like running when her back would be turned to the player
dont even get me started on lollipop chainsaw