Women in the Gaming World

As the gaming industry grows the audience to which it is reaching is also growing. More and more women are starting to take notice of how enjoyable video games can be. There are more video games coming out that seem to be targeted at women.
But are they being targeted in the right way? We see so many advertisements for games like Zumba Fitness, Just Dance, or animal and pet based games, that are targeted at just women. While games like Call of Duty, God of War, Assassins Creed, etc are being advertised towards men.

Are these gaming advertisements and companies being sexist? Assuming that more indepth games are meant only for men? Or is it the playerbase? Everywhere you see men belittling women who play games. They are called attention whores or, in the case of online gaming, told to go "make a sammich". Are the players to blame for the way women are targeted in gaming?

Or is there no real targeting going on? Female characters in games are sex symbols. They are scantily dressed and often times exude sex. But is there any difference to how the male characters are portrayed? They are usually quite muscular with tight clothing or clothes that are tattered and torn to reveal their muscles beneath.
Are women just as guilty as men for creating sex symbols in video games?


What are your thoughts ladies of BG?

the girl chars always have big boobs, makes me jealous

I think for the most part, games cater to a young male demographic. This is slowly changing as gaming becomes more mainstream and more people have access to online gaming, but it's still largely something largely considered a teen/young male phenomenon.

So you're gonna see lots of bouncing boobs and other things horny males like.

C.

Honestly, I feel it's just the player base.
More men are inclined to play those games, so they target them to sell more.

In my experience I haven't found men to be that way towards me. Sometimes boys who are clearly in their teens make rude comments, but who cares, it's a kid. And I just owned him, so that makes up for it.

Women aren't just looked at as sex symbols in a video game, it's like that in real life too.

Stereotyping is going to happens in all parts of life (even with video games). I honestly don't give a smurf about how a character is dressed etc. It used to bother me when I'd be on WoW and trade chat was all pissing on women. How girls don't play WoW or if they do they are ugly, fat etc. Now it's just MEH.

I've never gotten smurf for being a girl gamer, usually I was treated quite nicely once people found out I was a chick. Maybe I played games with smarter guys who realized that antagonizing the girl gamers isn't a good way to hit on them, lol.

C.

Quoting 3M'smom:" Stereotyping is going to happens in all parts of life (even with video games). I honestly don't give ... [snip!] ... WoW and trade chat was all pissing on women. How girls don't play WoW or if they do they are ugly, fat etc. Now it's just MEH. "

That's when a guild member would just post the link to our guild website with my pic and they'd shut the hell up.

I loved WoW and my uber awesome guild.  

Quoting God:" I think for the most part, games cater to a young male demographic. This is slowly changing as gaming ... [snip!] ... considered a teen/young male phenomenon. So you're gonna see lots of bouncing boobs and other things horny males like. C."

In that same sense though, don't we see a lot of extremely attractive male lead characters? So aren't women objectifying men in gaming as well?

Honestly, in WoW, I've not gotten much negativity. I mean I've had some people attempt to insult me by saying I'm only in a good guild/raid because I'm a chick.

Overall, however, I think the good outweighs the bad. Mostly I have people being pleasant to me. Could be that I am a good player, or just that they aren't jackasses.

I think the big boobed woman and rippling muscled men in games are used to target guys or girls into buying the game. I've never looked at it that way when choosing games though. If I like something I'm going to play it and I don't give a smurf what anyone else thinks.

Quoting Super Kame Vegeta:" In that same sense though, don't we see a lot of extremely attractive male lead characters? So aren't women objectifying men in gaming as well?"

I think they do that more for the guys, too. They don't want to watch guys who look like them, they want to play attractive muscly men who get all the ladies, heh.

C.

Quoting God:" I think they do that more for the guys, too. They don't want to watch guys who look like them, they want to play attractive muscly men who get all the ladies, heh. C."

Then that makes me wonder why women get so upset at seeing such sexy women in games.
When I play a game I like having my character look sexy, mysterious, powerful, etc.

Quoting Super Kame Vegeta:" Then that makes me wonder why women get so upset at seeing such sexy women in games. When I play a game I like having my character look sexy, mysterious, powerful, etc."

*shrug*

I dunno, video games have always existed in the fantasy realm for me, I just laugh at the overly exaggerated breasts and outfits some of them wear. It's never been intended to be realistic or we'd see games like

"Lara Croft gets coffee for her boss" and "guys from Halo discuss merger over water cooler" and "teenage boy masturbates to sears catalog for fifth time today."

C.

I've noticed that gaming is becoming more female friendly. I'm a big fan of RPGs like Fallout, Dragon Age, Mass Effect.
I really like the current trend of female characters wearing more sensible (yet still appealing) outfits/armor. I don't really do much online gaming, so I can't really speak for the social aspect.