Representation of Women

in Video Games

Ash Kapriyelov
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool Screen School
BA Media Production 20/04/2015
Dissertation 6001MEDIA
Content

Introduction ________________________________________________________________________________ 2
Audience Demographics ______________________________________________________________________ 4
Demographics of developers ___________________________________________________________________ 9
Identity ___________________________________________________________________________________ 13
Gender Representation and its effect on the audience. _____________________________________________ 16
Female Characters in Video Games ____________________________________________________________ 20
Conclusion ________________________________________________________________________________ 30
References ________________________________________________________________________________ 32
02 Introduction

Introduction
Video games are one of the youngest yet one of the most popular entertainment mediums. The

industry has progressed substantially since its inception in the 1940s when the first video game

released. As with every medium, digital games are constantly evolving. The narrative,

gameplay, visuals and even the way the audience interacts with the game are constantly

changing. In the past two years Sony, Microsoft, Samsung and others are focusing on Virtual

Reality headsets for console, desktop and mobile gamers. The revenue of the International

video game industry is estimated to be over 81.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 (Warman. 2014).

However, there is still a large demand for casual games, which are mainly oriented at the older

audience. Conversely, the ability to interrupt gameplay in casual games is appealing to

audiences of all ages as they can be played on the go. “The internet and mobile devices have

changed the gaming landscape forever, they’ve brought down the barriers to entry, making

gaming far more accessible and opened it up to a whole new audience” said Steve Chester,

Director of Data and Industry Programmes at the Internet Advertising Bureau. The Statistics

Portal (2015) estimated that the Global mobile game revenue reached 10.58 billion U.S. dollars

in 2014, up from 9.34 billion in 2012. The source forecasts, that the revenue will grow up to

12.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2016

In my research, I am interested in finding how women are represented in video games. How

this representation has changed through time and, if so, has that representation changed in a

positive way. In order to analyse the representation I will be exploring the ways that games are

marketed, demographics of the audience and developers, characters and identity issues.

I will be using both modern and ‘classical’ video games for case studies and will analyse

background characters, protagonists and antagonists. In order to analyse the audience

03 Introduction

expectations I will explore the social issues and abuse that female gamers face online. In

addition, I will be exploring the advertising techniques that developers use when they market

their games and investigate what audience they try to reach with their message.
04 Audience Demographics

Audience Demographics

In the early 1980s there was a massive drop in the video game industry in North America. This

downturn saw many video game companies filing for bankruptcy. One of the factors was that

by 1981-1983 there were many poor quality releases. At the peak of the crisis, Nintendo

released its Nintendo Entertainment System, a commercial success. Nintendo conducted

extensive audience research through hosting tournaments and communicating with its

customers through their own Nintendo Power magazine. Nintendo concluded that boys play

more games than girls do. This conclusion pushed Nintendo towards a new marketing strategy

wherein they targeted their adverts on young boys. Atari followed this approach with a few

adverts featuring a man whose sex appeal improves after he upgrades his Jaguar Console

evidenced by progressively more attractive women following him with each upgrade (Hess,

2013). By the early 90s, Atari, Nintendo and Sega made it clear that producing and market

video games for women would jeopardise their real market – men (Kennedy, 2002). Indeed, in

the mid-80s computer companies were targeting men with their marketing. NPR suggests that

this could also be because there was a significant drop in the number of women studying

computer science in 1984 (Henn, 2014). In the 1990s, researcher Jane Margolis concluded

that families were much more likely to buy computers for boys than for girls, regardless of

whether their girls were interested in computers.

Computer Space, the arcade machine that is generally labelled as the world's first coin-

operated video game machine, had a printed advert featuring a woman standing next to the

machine. She wore a see-through dress with her underwear visible underneath. Such

marketing strategies to use women's image and representation to target the male audience

was soon accepted as a norm in the industry. "In these promotional materials advertisers are
05 Audience Demographics

not just selling a product, they're also selling "gaming" as a lifestyle in which women

predominantly exists as passive objects of heterosexual male desire" (Sarkeesian, 2014)

In a 1998 PlayStation advert, a cast of popular game characters ambush their target customer

“Brad” in the cinema. They force him to choose between playing games, which they label as a

“masculine” thing to do, or being “totally whipped” by his girlfriend. He has to choose between

“a bazooka” and “watching a chick flick”. It culminates with Brad locking himself in a room with

Lara Croft and a PlayStation while his girlfriend is banging on the door. Sony was praised for

promoting a female-led game (Tomb Raider) on their console but it was clear that by the late

90s the main target for their marketing was men. In the 1998 original advert for the Legend of

Zelda: Ocarina of Time the game play footage is shown accompanied by the text "And in the

end willst thou get the girl? Or play like one?” implying that even if women do play video games

– they are very bad at it. Computers, gadgets and video games were stereotypically labelled as

“masculine” pursuits and adverts for them were heavily targeted at men. "Marketing is insights-

based," says Amy Cotteleer (2013) - president of A Squared Marketing Group. "People land on

something, something resonates, it appeals to a certain gender or category of the population

and it makes sense from a marketing perspective to go after it."

The demographics today have changed significantly. According to the Entertainment Software

Association (ESA), there is an equal share of males and females who frequently purchase

video games in 2014 in the US. That said only 48% of US women consider themselves as

game players. Women aged 18 and over represent a much greater portion of gamers than men

aged 18 or younger - 36% to 17% respectively. The UK statistics by Internet Advertising

Bureau (2015) reveals that 52% of video game players in the UK are in fact women. The

further study by the Internet Advertising Bureau revealed that 33% of women prefer
06 Audience Demographics

Trivia/Word/puzzle games; but the stereotype, that women are solely interested in casual

mobile games, is brought to bear by further data: 47% of female gamers played a disc-based

game in the past six months and 68% had played an online game in the same period of time.

56% of women have played on a console.

Regardless of the fact that women make up a huge portion of the audience, some video games

remain labelled as a “men only” environment. Female game players can face much abuse

during online gaming, particularly during combat-based competitive games like Call of Duty.

The amount of abuse the gamers receive solely because of their gender is so huge that it

pushed a few women to found a website where they post examples of harassment from all

games - mostly pictures of in-game messages that women receive from other gamers - Fat,

Ugly or Slutty. In February 2012 during Cross Assault (gaming competition) a male player Aris

Bakhtanians made offensive remarks regarding a fellow player Miranda Pakozdi. This was a

face-to-face competition and it was broadcast online via Internet video streaming. During the

broadcast Bakhtanians was making comments regarding Pakozdi's bra size, her body parts

and even sniffed her. He also added, "sexual harassment is part of the [gaming] culture". The

video stream caused a massive debate online. Bakhtanians apologised later on, but some

people were urging him not to apologise - "As a female you can't get upset if something is said

that is obscene if you're hanging out in a room full of guys" said Jonathan Quamina, another

gamer.

The demographics have changed but the idea that video games are a solely “male

environment” seems to live on. The marketing also changed and TV adverts are far less

gender-biased. Conversely, in a 2012 French TV advert for Resident Evil Revelations, a

07 Audience Demographics

woman peeks into a key hole and becomes scared from the gameplay, screaming at the top of

her voice.

Entertainment expos are a good example of gender-biased marketing. Video-game companies

hire female models to promote their games. E3 has a special “babe booth” where gamers can

take a picture with models. Recently E3 was revising whether to remove booths all together,

which sparked a debate within the gaming community, where gamers (men mostly) complained

that “babe booths” are an important part of the expo. Entertainment expos feature many

cosplayers – people who dress up as their favourite game/film characters, both male and

female. There are booths where cosplayers (if they want to) can go and pose for press. While

cosplayers clearly are a reasonable part of such event, “babes” are purely there as male “eye

candy” (Reggie, 2015).

There could be another explanation why so-called "hard-core" games are not marketed toward

women. Nakamura and Wirman’s (2005) research suggests that women, contrary to men, do

not like violence in video games. Violent themes and motifs do not appeal to women

(Goldstein, 1994); they prefer nonviolent narratives and gameplay (Nikken, 2000; Gailey, 1993;

Provenzo, 1991). Furthermore, Nakamura and Wirman concluded that women love co-

operative games. They like to work together with other characters (controlled by other people

or bots) in order to beat the game. It is also suggested that females have tendencies to care for

their avatar (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield).

Women also prefer realistic settings with realistic characters and a much more calm and

peaceful pace than men (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, 1999). Games like The Sims and

Little Big Planet seem to be in favour of this theory. Sharon Knight, vice president of Electronic

Arts in her interview with Gamespot in 2002 says that The Sims "has a 65 percent female
08 Audience Demographics

audience". She speculates, "I think it was at the brink of the whole 'who do you want to be?'

trend. You can make an avatar that you play as yourself". The game space that focuses on the

player's identity and communication aspect appeal to female audiences (Jenkins, 2006). A

slower pace, community construction, socialisation, non-violent environment and creative ability

makes Little Big Planet conform to Wirman and Nikamura's theory and explains the popularity

of the game amongst women. Though Eric Fong, associate producer for Media Molecule

(developer of the Little Big Planet series) says that their "target audience is everyone" (Dutka,

2008).

Research of Yasmin Kafai (2010) has shown that female gamers want to play games with

female protagonists as it is much easier to identify with the avatar of one’s own sex. It is

proposed that in order for women to be more interested in video games - the games need

much stronger and bolder female protagonists. Women are also often disturbed by

stereotypical female representation oriented at men (Kerr, 2003; Haines, 2004).

If most women do prefer slow-paced and peaceful games then it would make sense why, for

example, Rockstar does not market their Grand Theft Auto games to women. However, this

leaves out a large portion of women who do play “hard-core” games. Perhaps if Rockstar would

finally have a female protagonist in their Grand Theft Auto game series, there would be much

more hard-core gamers who are women. Tomb Raider is marketed to men but it has a huge

female audience, simply because Lara Croft is a strong character.

09 Demographics of developers

Demographics of developers
In the early days of computer game development, there were only a few female game

developers but interestingly the games were far less targeted at male audience.

Roberta Williams and her husband Ken founded Sierra Entertainment in the early 1980s.

Originally known as On-Line Systems, Sierra would later be recognised for its captivating

graphic adventure-quest games Leisure Suit Larry, King's Quest, The Space Quest and many

others.

While the studio, just like other video-game developing outlets, was mostly dominated by male

staff, Roberta was titled as the Queen of Sierra as she was designing "King's Quest" - the

company's most successful title at the time. GameSpot ranked her as number ten in its list of

"the most influential people in computer gaming of all time" for her innovative approach to

graphic adventures and for being "especially proactive in creating games from a woman's point

of view" (Lien, 2013) . That being said, a "woman's point of view" is perhaps not that different to

a "male point of view". Lori Cole was another female developer at Sierra at the time. It was her

opinion that gender had very little to do with gaming at that stage. "Those games weren't

exactly female-targeted, but it was guys who were making them, and they were trying to make

what they could with this technology... so I don't think it was a case of the games being

designed for guys. They were just designed by guys."

Nevertheless, Sierra had a huge female audience. Cole remembers that when Sierra released

a King's Quest with a female protagonist, the whole team were laughing at a letter they

received from "this guy who was calling Roberta [Williams] a feminist for wanting to have a

female as a main character". Cole says that the company had a few games with women as

protagonists and that "nobody thought it was an issue".

10 Demographics of developers

In 1982, Carol Shaw designed and programmed River Raid. She was the first female game

designer Atari hired in the early 80s. As a woman with a degree in computer science, Shaw

never considered that her gender would affect her ability to get a job in the video game. She

also never felt that video games were biased toward one gender. "We didn't discuss gender or

age. We just did games we thought would be fun". Atari has released many games that were

not gender biased. Shaw says that the only time the subject of gender in games came up was

when the future president and CEO of Atari Ray Kassar said, "Gee, now that Atari has a female

game designer, she can do interior decorating and cosmetic colour-matching games!”

In 1995 Lara Croft was created by Toby Gard, a male designer at Core Design, a company

with predominantly male staff. The game was marketed toward men but there were more

women involved in making the game than just voice actresses. Heather Gibson, level editor,

created the iconic Croft Manor and the majority of levels in the first and second instalments of

Tomb Raider. The final female member of the production team was Vicky Arnold; a scriptwriter

for the first three Tomb Raider instalments. Notably Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider II are

labelled as the most successful Core Design games in the franchise.

The new Tomb Raider games feature Rihanna Pratchett as a scriptwriter. She is known for her

strong feminist position. On the increasingly sexualised portrayal of Lara Croft, she said "It

made me feel that these were games aimed squarely at guys, and therefore weren't

necessarily for me. In the past developers have definitely forgotten about the brains bit [when

dealing with female game characters], mainly because that is an aspect of a character that

cannot be depicted visually, it has to be done through smart dialogue and appropriate action.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a female character being attractive, even sexy, it’s just

when it’s done in a purely 'tits out for the lads' way that it becomes rather embarrassing."
11 Demographics of developers

Pratchett wanted to portray Lara as lesbian in the latest game but the studio (Crystal

Dynamics) vetoed this decision. During the 2013 BAFTA Games presentation of Tomb Raider,

Pratchett stated that “The industry isn’t ready for this yet”. Edge magazine put Rihanna

Pratchett in its 'Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women' list.

The male dominance of video game development is still in evidence today but trends do

indicate a move towards a more gender-balanced industry. The early 2000s saw an increase in

the proportion of female developers to 11%. This change has continued to today where the

proportion is reported to be around 22% (Tassi, 2014).

Females who are involved in the video games industry can also face abuse and threats. In

early 2013 Zoe Quinn, an indie game developer, published her free game called Depression

Quest. The game received positive reviews from critics but some gamers disliked the fact that

the game received an apparently unjustified amount of attention. Zoe Quinn started receiving

hate emails and harassment. This escalated in 2014 when her ex-boyfriend posted a blog post,

accusing her of cheating on him with a journalist Nathan Grayson. The blog post provoked

further backslash as the gamers now believed that her game received a rave review simply

because of that affair despite ample evidence to the contrary (Parkin, 2014). Zoe Quinn and

her family faces abuse and rape threats to this date.

In August 2014 Anita Sarkeesian released a series of episodic videos Tropes vs. Women in

Video Games that focus on stereotypical female representation. Sarkeesian received death

and rape threats and the attackers leaked her home address. She had to cancel her speech at

Utah State University after the institution received threats. Sarkeesian and her family still faces

abuse and threats against their lives.

12 Demographics of developers

Similar to Sarkeesian and Quinn a community manager for Crystal Dynamics, Meagan Marie,

faced the same abuse recently. She stated on her Facebook that the abuser knows her home

address and she had to stay at her friends for a few days, as she was scared for her life. She

received a vast amount of support from the studio and fans.

13 Identity

Identity
Video games often contain operators through which players interact with the game world.

These can range from abstract shapes to fully-fledged characters with whom players are often

asked to identify. The interactive component of video games puts them in a different position in

terms of representation in the entertainment media. The medium has a near-unlimited pool of

identities from which it can form its characters; people that can represent a variety of options

regarding race, gender, lifestyle, clothes, personality and more. Diversity of representation

results in a set of archetypical identities, atypical identities and non-traditional identities.

Female characters tend to appear in stereotypical and hypersexualized dress. Gender

stereotypes are particularly visible with respect to physical features.

Thaddeus Griebel's research (2006) on the audience for The Sims 2 suggests that 27 of 30

participants identified themselves with one of the Sims that they control. For these 27

participants the gender of the self-identifying Sim was the same as their own gender.

Some may argue that making gender-based differences for character may be a good idea for

video games as in the following quote: “When the sex of the game character has impact on

potential gaming tactics and situations, the gaming experience becomes more diversified and

personal" (Wirman and Nakamura, 2005).

While most hard-core games with a single player campaign follow the story of one character,

often leading to a series of games and essentially making that protagonist an icon; some

games like The Elder Scrolls series (Bethesda, 1994-2014) and Dragon Age series (Bioware,

2009-2014) let the gamer create their own avatar of any gender. Bioware even allows romantic

relations to be established with non-playable characters regardless of their and the player's

avatar's gender. This provoked some controversy when in 2011 a "straight gamer" raised a
14 Identity

complaint stating that Bioware must respect "their main demographic: The Straight Male

Gamer", additionally adding that "there isn’t a significant number of women who play Dragon

Age and that Bioware should forgo the option of playing as a woman altogether, but there

should have been much more focus on making sure us male gamers were happy". David

Gaider, one of the developers at Bioware released a public statement that "The romances in

the game are not for “the straight male gamer”. They are for everyone. We have a lot of fans,

many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention" and that "The

majority has no inherent “right” to get more options than anyone else". He concluded "The very

best we can do is give everyone a little bit of choice, and that’s what we tried here. And the

person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask

me, the one who deserves it least". In their latest instalment, Dragon Age Inquisition, the same

sex relations and female avatars remained present. In 2014 Cameron Lee, a producer at

Bioware, said at Gamescom "more RPGs (Role Play Games) should allow you to play with any

race, gender and sexuality you choose". Bioware also added options for female avatars and

same sex relations to all of its major RPGs such as the Star Wars and Mass Effect series

(Garratt, 2014).

Regardless of the fact that some games let the player create an avatar similar to themselves,

many gamers prefer to create an avatar that often has nothing to do with their own appearance

or even gender. Sherry Turkle (1997) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

investigated gender swapping in Multi-player games. During her research she concluded that

often men choose female avatars as female characters are "besieged with attention, sexual

advances, and unrequested offers of assistance", essentially implying that there is a proportion

of gamers that assume that women are incapable of solving tasks by themselves. Turkle

reported that "men playing women in role playing games have remarked that other male
15 Identity

players (male characters) sometimes expect sexual favours in return for assistance." Turkle

theorises that such behaviour is similar to paying for dinner in a restaurant except that it is

being "used to purchase rather than win a woman's regard". Through occurrences like these

games become an interesting platform to understand the social representation of gender and

sexual harassment. Research by Jesse Fox concludes that playing as a sexually appealing

character in an online video game can cause hostile behaviour from other players.

Video games essentially give its players an experience of how gender affects human relations.

The interactive aspect of gaming lets the player experience events from the point of view of the

opposite gender rather than just observe them.

Turkle interviewed gamers regarding why they would choose an avatar of opposite gender and

concluded that "through this practice they were looking through personal issues that had to do

with accepting the feminine and/or masculine in their own personalities".

 Gender Representation and its effect on the
16 audience.

Gender Representation and its effect on the

audience.
As developers release games with deeper narratives, they use the same story-telling

techniques as the film and TV industries, relying on binary opposition, three act structures,

stereotypes and other techniques to achieve a preferred reading with the audience. This

usually does not include arcades/casual games that are purely made for the sake of gameplay

and tend not to have a rich narrative structure. Nevertheless, they can also rely on stereotypes.

In Streets of Rage 3 (1994) and its 2013 fan-made re-mastered Streets of Rage Remake,

Blaze Fielding is one of the playable characters. She wears a miniskirt and produces a

distinctive high-pitched female scream when she’s killed, so do the female antagonists, who

also wear miniskirts or tights with high-heeled boots. The game also has one of the first LGBT

characters; an antagonist called Ash. He is portrayed through the use of a distinctive

stereotypical portrayal of a gay man and is found in a gay club accompanied by a cheesy

soundtrack. Most of the female antagonists (and Ash) fight with the protagonists by trying to

slap them.

In 1986, Nintendo released Metroid. A game in which a protagonist wore a massive space suit,

making them essentially gender-neutral. Nevertheless, as all other games at a time had male

protagonists the audience assumed that the protagonist of Metroid was male as well. Only in

the end of the game was it revealed that the protagonist was a female character. This

demonstrates that the character’s gender can have no effect on the core gameplay, particularly

for arcade games like Metroid; its effect is outside of the mechanics of the game. Such a

contemporarily controversial move from the developers was praised by the audience and in

part led to the popularity of the franchise. “For formalist and structuralist theories of narrative a

character is defined not by his or her psychological traits, physical features, social status or
 Gender Representation and its effect on the
17 audience.

even gender, but by what he or she does and his or her role in the story in which they

participate” (Simons)

Countering this apparent forward-thinking decision was the choice to include a render of the

protagonist in nothing but her underwear viewable upon achieving the ‘best’ ending. This

game’s representation of femininity, whether pandering or empowering, is not stereotypical as

the game mechanics (before the character’s gender is revealed) do not focus on gender role.

An extreme example of evidence that gender can potentially leave no effect on gameplay is

Ms. Pacman (1982); essentially a clone of the original Pac Man(1980) with a few changes to

the level-design but with the same gameplay mechanics.

Representation of femininity in Ms. Pacman is different to Metroid as Ms. Pacman has a

distinctive bow and lipstick. Essentially the game developers just added a bow and painted

Pacman’s mouth red, thus making Ms. Pacman; a generic representation of femininity. She is

controlled and acts exactly like the original Pacman.

In 1994 British studio, Core Design started making an action adventure video game that would

be a modern day take on Indiana Jones borrowing heavily from Core’s previous game Rick

Dangerous (1989). The protagonist would enter tombs, find treasures, and shoot enemies and

hostile wildlife. Toby Gard, the game designer, originally planned to give the character a whip

and a hat as signature items but the general producer Jeremy Heath-Smith demanded more

originality. Gard then decided to change his protagonist to female. He wanted to challenge the

stereotypical “bimbo” representation through the character; as well as animate the character as

realistically as possible in an attempt garner audience empathy more easily. The character was

given the name Lara Croft and she would become the heroine of the Tomb Raider video game.

In 1995 the game was presented behind closed doors at ECTS. The company was very
 Gender Representation and its effect on the
18 audience.

concerned with having a female character as the main protagonist as male characters and

male audiences dominated the gaming medium.

In the video games, she was portrayed as strong, witty and independent. Regardless of this

challenging and positive representation of femininity in Tomb Raider, Lara Croft’s design was

still used to pander to a male audience with her distinctive breast size and her wearing

revealing clothing on posters.

Of note is that Tomb Raider was a unique game in terms of representations as it is the first

game where a playable (for a few levels) male character uses the same controls, techniques

and even some animations as the main female character. If Ms Pacman copies her male

predecessor, then in Tomb Raider Kurtis Trent replicates Lara Croft. The game mechanics

remained the same throughout Tomb Raider 6 for both Kurtis and Lara. In the year 2000

Maxis released The Sims, a game where the player is allowed to create any character (male or

female), dress them and (in the later instalments) the player is left to decide how masculine or

feminine the character will be (by choosing their ‘idle’ and ‘walk’ animations and voice tone).

Originally, the developers did not like the idea of an interactive dollhouse as “doll houses are

for girls, and girls don’t play video games” (Braun, citied in Seabrook, 2006).

The Sims however further challenged gender representation by letting male Sims become

pregnant. On the other hand, male and female characters had different sets of clothes and a

female Sim could not wear a male Sim’s clothes. Which means that female representation is

only limited to the amount of clothing and hairstyle items provided by designers.

The game designers use one or a combination of the following distinctive sets to represent a

female character: attire, body shape/length, hairstyle, legs and breasts. The more of the sets

are used and the more ‘female’ like they are – the more stereotypical the character will be. The
 Gender Representation and its effect on the
19 audience.

representation of a female identity largely depends on the developer’s demographics and the

potential audiences that the designers are trying to reach.

20 Female Characters in Video Games

Female Characters in Video Games

One of the oldest tropes regarding female representation is the archetype of a damsel in

distress. The damsel in distress is a classic archetype that is often used in literature, films and

video games. The damsel is usually a beautiful young woman that is being trapped, kidnaped

or otherwise is endangered, usually by a monster or any sort of antagonist. She helplessly

waits to be rescued.

One of the first uses of this plot device dates back to Ancient Greek mythology. Andromeda -

the daughter of a king, chained to a rock as a sacrifice to the god Poseidon, as her mother

offended him. She was stripped naked and was about to be eaten by Poseidon's sea monster

Cetus. Perseus, a male hero, then rescues her. In fairy-tales this motif is often replicated with

"princess and a dragon" with a “knight in shining armour” coming and slaying the dragon and

rescuing the princess. Early games featured very few of female characters. The producers,

often making women a reward, used most of those characters as “damsel in distress” plot

devices.

Donkey Kong - an arcade game produced by Nintendo in 1981 is another perfect example of

the "damsel in distress" trope. In this game, the male protagonist Mario must reach and save

Pauline (the damsel in distress) from the Donkey Kong. The designers added various items

that belong to Pauline and that the player can collect. The items vary from sunshades to

purses, rendering Pauline useless and stereotypical. As discussed in previous chapters,

Nintendo was heavily targeting male audiences in the 80s. This game was Nintendo's key effort

to take over the North American market and they succeeded.

In 1982, Nintendo released Popeye - an arcade game based on the famous cartoon character.

Much like the cartoon, Popeye's main objective was to save Olive Oyl. The protagonist had to
21 Female Characters in Video Games

avoid antagonists called Bluto and Sea Hag and collect various items that Olive produces,

including hearts and musical notes. Once a certain amount of items is collected, Olive is

surrounded with hearts and the player advances further to the next level. Unlike Pauline, Olive

Oyl is more active. She throws the items and walks from side to side, while the items in Donkey

Kong are already placed around the level and Pauline is static. In early versions of Donkey

Kong Pauline didn’t even have a name and was only referred to as “the Lady”.

Nintendo's 1985 Super Mario video game carried on the "damsel in distress" tradition. The

player must save his love interest Princess Peach from a dragon-like creature called Bowser.

Much like Pauline in Donkey Kong, Princess Peach is rendered useless and helpless. Princess

Peach features in fourteen Super Mario games and she is a damsel in distress in thirteen of

them. Two decades after her initial debut however, when she became a protagonist of her own

game, her representation worsened. In the Super Princess Peach, released in 2005 the player

must navigate Princess Peach through the worlds. Needless to say that Nintendo's

representation of princess was over-the-top feminine with a huge pink dress, large earrings and

a parasol. Additionally to that, Nintendo threw in a stereotypical PMS joke by giving her an

emotion meter. The player can activate one of four emotions (joy, gloom, rage, and calm) which

gives a certain ability in fight and puzzle solving. Chris Dmytrow (2011), a reviewer at

Gamefaqs.com gave this game 1/10 because it "fails almost every test there is when it comes

to being even an average game - boring, tedious, not fun at all, bad control setup, et al - let

alone a good one".

Interestingly, in the mid-90s, Dietz conducted an analysis of 33 games for Nintendo and Sega

Genesis game-consoles. The majority of those games (70%) had a female character in them

and only in 21% of those games the female characters were portrayed in submissive,
22 Female Characters in Video Games

stereotypical roles, particularly as "damsels in distress". In addition, less than a quarter of the

female characters were playable. The research noted only a small number of female

protagonists (15%), whilst other females remained in their stereotypical role of kidnapped

women, helplessly waiting to be rescued by a male protagonists. Dietz observed that the

majority of sampled games had "masculine" themes such as war, action and violence.

In 1999, Rare started developing their next title called Dinosaur Planet, featuring two

protagonists, one male, Sabre, and one female, Krystal. Krystal was Sabre's adopted sister.

Krystal was represented as a strong female character that wielded a staff to fight monsters.

The player could swap between the characters at any time. The game was supposed to be

published by Nintendo in 2000, but just before the game was released, Nintendo's game

designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Donkey Kong and Super Mario, suggested that the

game should become the next instalment of Nintendo's Starfox Adventures series. Dinosaur

Planet was then scrapped, the original script was re-written and the game was redesigned and

released as The Starfox Adventures in 2002. Krystal's role as the protagonist was changed to a

damsel in distress. Krystal was trapped inside the "crystal" and the protagonist, Fox McCloud,

using the same staff that Krystal wielded in Dinosaur Planet, must save his love interest.

Krystal's outfit also changed to overtly sexualised and revealing. When the protagonist first

sees Krystal trapped, saxophone music is played to further stress that she is his love interest,

even though he has just seen her for the first time in his life. "The subset of largely insignificant

non-playable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse

edgy, gritty or racy flavouring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are

designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players"

(Sarkeesian, 2014).
23 Female Characters in Video Games

However, a damsel in distress is not necessarily what the female character is but rather is the

state that the character turns into (Sarkeesian, 2014). For example, Sega’s 1995 beat ‘em up

video game Comix Zone features Sketch Turner as a protagonist. Alissa Cyan who radios him

with hints and tips is helping him. In the very last level however she is imprisoned and about to

drown, thus rendered her a damsel in distress and becoming a new plot point in the game,

essentially making the final fight with Mortus (antagonist) to be for Alissa rather than to defeat

Mortus and return to real life (the protagonist is imprisoned in a comic book). If Alissa dies, it

leads to a "bad" ending where Sketch returns to real life completely devastated. If the player

saves Alissa in time the game shows a "good" ending, which implies that Sketch and Alissa are

now romantically involved.

Princess Zelda is normally a damsel in distress in the Zelda game series and is always

kidnapped or cursed. The male protagonist Link then goes on a quest to save her. In the 1998

game Ocarina of time, she takes a sidekick role of Sheik as she is disguised in male clothes.

She is then not captured for most of the game until she reveals her real identity. The game's

plot then changes to "save the damsel" mode. In 2003's Zelda instalment Wind Waker she also

accompanies Link disguised as a male, but once she reveals herself she is told, "It is far too

dangerous for you to join us in this task". Zelda then waits in the castle until she is kidnapped.

Which essentially leads to the conclusion that the damsel in distress trope is a plot device that

reduces the power of a female character and by doing so empowers the male protagonist

(Sarkeesian, 2014).

Male protagonists facing the same situation as damsels in distress (incapacitated or

imprisoned) manage to arrange their own escape. In the 1998 Metal Gear Solid game by

Konami, Snake (protagonist) manages to escape a prison cell on his own. In Prince of Persia
24 Female Characters in Video Games

3D released in 1999 by Red Orb Entertainment the Prince escapes using his own skills. In the

2014 Ubisoft action game Assassin’s Creed Unity the main protagonist manages to escape

bastille with minor help from his male cell mate. The ability for a character to overcome the

problem and gain their own freedom gives the character a feeling of power and heroism

(Sarkeesian, 2014).

In 2001, Children Now analysed characters of seventy video games. The research found a

range of stereotypical and archetypical representations of male and female characters in all of

them. Females composed barely 16% of characters, half of which were non-playable

characters (NPC) with a large portion of them being used as the same narrative plot point as

damsel in distress. Thus demonstrating a repeating pattern aligned with the research by Dietz.

The damsel in distress trope is still used, though less often, in modern day video games as a

plot device. Rihanna Pratchett suggests that when a damsel in distress plot device is used it is

not "necessarily always just a one-dimensional character type, entirely defined by victimhood.”

In 2013’s Tomb Raider, for which she wrote the script, Lara Croft occasionally saves Sam, a

female character and her friend. Sam is not her love interest (even though Rihanna did plan to

make Lara Croft a lesbian in this game) unlike Princess Peach is for Mario, but the narrative

technique used remains the same. Sam is portrayed useless and helpless, even when during

one of the cut scenes she is finally given a weapon, thus making Lara more powerful.

This said, Tomb Raider did break the damsel in distress stereotype in 1997, when the female

protagonist is incapacitated and imprisoned in an oilrig, she manages to escape the prison

without the support of any male characters. In fact, Tomb Raider II (unlike its prequel) features

no other female characters apart of the protagonist. In Tomb Raider 3 Lara Croft deliberately
25 Female Characters in Video Games

lets herself be captured by guards at Area 51 so she could be transported to a high-security

compound.

Such NPCs become objects, to which the gamers have no emotional commitment. "When men

are depicted using female NPCs as tools or commodities, their actions are portrayed as part of

what makes them powerful, which is by extension part of what makes the player then feel

powerful. So these interactive algorithms transmit cultural messages of near constant

affirmation of male heterosexual dominance, while simultaneously reinforcing the widespread

regressive belief that women’s primary role is to satisfy the desires of men" (Sarkeesian, 2014)

A number of video games feature non-controllable female characters in roles of prostitutes.

Such characters literally have no other meaning than being objectified by male players. If

traditional media such as films put the audience in a passive observer state, games move their

audience to an active observer position. Therefore, the poor portrayal of women in video

games brings in a deeper impression of misrepresentation than to that of the spectator in film.

Whilst some role-play games like Mass Effect let you choose between female or male avatars,

the prostitutes and strippers in games remain to be exclusively of the female gender. In Grand

Theft Auto, Hitman, Deus Ex, The Witcher and other games the prostitutes are of a foreign

decent. Their English is often poor and mixed with a distinctive accent to reinforce motifs of

sexual tourism. "Scenarios like these are part of a long racist tradition of representing women

of colour as mysterious and hypersexual creatures who exist as an “exotic spice” to be

consumed by the white or western man." (Sarkeesian, 2014)

Additionally, some developers choose to change their representation of female characters in

their long lasting franchises. Mortal Kombat X (2015) developed by NetherRealm Studios and

published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in April 2015 is the latest example of a
26 Female Characters in Video Games

positive shift in representation of women and minorities in video games. Mortal Kombat was

originally released in 1992 and female characters were represented in hypersexual clothing

right up until the latest instalment. The most vivid example of this is how Sonya Blade’s

costume has changed. In Mortal Kombat 9 (2011), just like in all previous games, she wore

very revealing clothes, regardless of the fact that she is in the Special Forces. In Mortal Kombat

X Sonya’s uniform is very conservative and realistic. Appearance aside, Sonya was also used

as a damsel in distress in 1995’s Mortal Kombat film adaptation. Sonya is kidnapped by Shang

Tsung. The same happened to her in Mortal Kombat 9. In fact, in Mortal Kombat 9 she is

captured twice throughout the main story. Leonard Pitts, a journalist and novelist, uses Sonya

being captured in the film as a main example for his thesis Sexism Still Prevails in Action

Movies (1995).

NetherRealm pushed the boundaries further by making most of the female characters wear

more conservative clothes than in previous games. Mortal Kombat X also features the first gay

character in the franchise history which, unlike Ash in the Streets of Rage, is not stereotypically

represented.

Angelo D'Argenio (2015), a senior writer for Cheat Code Central says that Mortal Kombat X "is

visible proof of feminism at work, in a good way that as far as I can tell hasn’t made everyone

flip out yet". He says that Mortal Kombat X is "being progressive and more appealing to more

female gamers than its predecessors".

The production manager for NetherRealm Spiro Anagnostakos (2014) said that "the mantra for

this game has always been realism, heading towards a more realistic look", which is why

NetherRealm revamped their female characters by reducing their breasts size (so they more
27 Female Characters in Video Games

represent martial artists) and changing their costumes to more realistic ones, essentially

focusing on character personality rather than their body parts.

Mortal Kombat is not the only game franchise to do so. The latest instalment of Battlefield - a

series of hard-core first person shooters with exclusively male protagonists is another example

of such a shift in portrayal. Battlefield Hardline, developed by Visceral Games and published in

March 2015 by Electronic Arts features yet another male protagonist who is accompanied by a

non-playable female character Khai Minh Dao. Khai is represented as a police detective

without a generic over-sexualised look. She is tough and strong and is able to take care of

herself.

Despite the serious change in representation of women and minorities in video games, many

other publishers keep to the "male character only" formula, essentially ignoring social realism.

Those developers however started to face heavy criticism for lack of playable female

characters. Ubisoft's Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014) was criticised for the lack of females in the

game. It sparkled a protest within the female cosplay community. Additionally, Capcom's Deep

Down (2014) also has only male characters to play as and was heavily criticised by game

critics. The producer of Deep Down, Kazunori Sugiura, said that the game would not have

female characters because of its plot. A writer for VG247 Brenna Hillier in her article "Deep

Down the rabbit hole of ingrained games industry sexism" (2014) called Sugiura's reasons to

exclude women from the game unsatisfactory. She says, "There’s no reason why it had to write

a plot that excluded female characters. There’s no reason why its story about virtual reality time

travelling explorers couldn’t include women".

Box covers for games were one of the pivotal marketing techniques employed by the gaming

industry. They built audience expectation and briefly outlined themes, motifs and sometimes
28 Female Characters in Video Games

the plot of the game. In the early 90s, Provenzo (1991) conducted research on 47 Nintendo

game covers. The absolute majority of the characters on those covers were male (115

characters out of 124). Furthermore, a quarter of the male characters were presented in a

dominant position. Contrary to that, women were not represented in dominant roles on any of

those covers. In fact, a third of female characters were in a submissive role.

In 2002 Urbina and his team of researchers investigated the box covers of 166 games. The

vast majority of the 286 characters were male (239), with three quarters of those males

portrayed in a dominant position. Out of forty seven female characters, fifteen appeared in a

submissive role. This research noted a significant transition in the portrayal of female

characters with 50% of the female characters being portrayed in a dominant role. There were

also five male characters that were portrayed in submissive roles. Such a change of female

portrayal could be explained by the 1995-1998 period of "Girl Power", pushed by bands like the

Spice Girls, TV series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the release of Tomb Raider (Kennedy,

2002)

In their research paper "the Representation of Gender and Ethnicity in Digital Interactive

Games", (2004) Jansz and Martis subjected to analysis twelve games released in the period

between 2002 and 2003. Sixty percent of the characters in their sample were male. A further

shift in gender representation is demonstrated by the fact that half of the protagonists of those

games were females and that 70% of the non-playable characters were male. They noted that

there was no observation of a female non-playable character held in a submissive role, they

were either dominant or had an equal position to male characters. Furthermore, just like in a

previous study by Urbina, there was a small percentage of male characters in submissive roles.

The great example of shift in gender role representation is “Jennifer in Primal, who must
29 Female Characters in Video Games

embark on a journey to rescue her boyfriend Lewis, illustrates that men in contemporary video

games can be victims who must be saved by a female character" (Jansz and Martis, 2004).

Essentially breaking the fact that the "damsel in distress" plot device is exclusive to females.

The visual gender representation remained unchanged though, with over 80% of female

characters having distinctive female shapes, with a "sexy attire" being observed solely within

that gender group. There were exclusions to that rule with some protagonists such as Dante

from the second instalment of Devil May Cry appearing in an "explicit, sexy outfit". The

research however cannot be completely accurate as the team chose only twelve games with a

"deliberate selection [of games] with a diverse population". The fact that both genders had an

equal share of characters is very different to the research data conducted in previous years.

Urbina noted a rise of strong female characters and that trend seems to be gaining popularity.

The second distinctive fact in the results of Jansz and Martis' team’s research is that there

were no submissive female characters at all, contrary to previous studies.

30 Conclusion

Conclusion
Video games as a medium are part of social culture. The stereotypical representation of

women doesn't come out of nowhere but originates from the sexist belief that women are a

weaker gender and therefore need to be saved, taken care of and be protected by men

(Sarkeesian).

As more and more women play video games, the developers try to respond to the demand by

making their female characters less stereotypical. The shift in representation is also provoked

by social and cultural changes and feminist groups exposing their concerns over the

representation of women. Therefore, regardless of the fact that women "prefer" puzzle games,

the developers of hard-core games that have male protagonists and are typically marketed

toward men have a far less stereotypical representation of women than they used to. Jesse

Fox (2013) concluded in her research paper that constant exposure of both men and women to

over-sexualised portrayals of characters provokes more sexism and rape myth acceptance

than non-stereotypical and realistic portrayals. This could lead to a consensus, that a lot of

sexist and misogynist comments and abuse that women receive in online gaming from men

could be provoked by the content of video games the said men play.

Representation is not the only issue that female gamers can face whilst playing games. The

sexual harassment that women face from their fellow male gamers is a big social problem.

Stephen Toulouse, a moderator of the Xbox Live online network says that between 2007 and

2012 women have been the most frequent target of insults and abuse (Gonzalez, 2014).

It is important for the developers to realise the potential problematic aspects the poor

representation might lead to. As video games become even more popular and video game
31 Conclusion

characters become an ever-increasing part of social consciousness, more female protagonists

are needed to push gender representation out of its generic and stereotypical portrayal.
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