1. Sexism And Representation of Women
For me, this is the hottest topic in the gaming industry right now and the one I feel most passionately about. Gaming has always had a pretty complicated relationship with women, both those involved in the industry but also how it portrays its female characters. It is an issue that has been boiling to the surface over the last year through various events and discussions being had amongst audiences, marketers, developers and journalists. The most recent example of this is the experiences of the creative director of the upcoming game Remember Me and the trouble he had getting a game published that featured a female protagonist. He told
Penny Arcade Report of publishers:
Some that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that...'
This is a sad state and shows how some developers are stuck in past generations, too afraid to do something bold, that by today's society shouldn't be bold. We are talking about the fair treatment of women here for God's sake. This shouldn't be an issue in today's age. For a medium that as progressive as this, we sure are stuck in the dark ages when it comes to treatment of people. I have always put this down to a maturity problem within the medium. As much as I like to push the medium to the forefront and argue its value as a legitimate artform, the industry has just never quite figured out how to invite women into the community and not alienate them. While a lot of them have always played video games, that number is constantly rising and these women are starting to be heard. This is something I could write pages and pages about (look to the future...) but as a jumping off point for you to look into, hopefully this will do.