Go Girls, Go! Where to?

Probably solving all cases of ill treatment towards women (trafficking, vaginal circumcision, rape, domestic battering, job harassment, and ? one of my favorites ? the part where the parents, nothing but malevolent, force their daughter to marry some lowlife, in a cultured form of sex traffic), a band of crusaders against women discrimination decided to take a break and rest their brains in front of a PC and presumably earn some money in the process (links here: 1, 2, 3, 4).

The process is simple: the first step is to decide what best-seller game to take on, the second step is where you enter the process of digging for ?political-correctness? issues. The Elder Scrolls was riding the wave these days, and sexual discrimination is just as fashionable. Some firm stirring of these two and, presto, Gender Discrimination in The Elder Scrolls of Oblivion!

It is rumored that girls are as serious game buyers as us boys; therefore, game developers should take them and their interests into consideration when preparing their ?bliss in a compact disc?. Yay! It is like asking, no!, urging (is better fitted) novelists like Mario Vargas Llosa or ? worse ? Vladimir Nabokov to stop writing from a man?s perspective and even dump his male main characters and make everything more ?tender and effeminate? so girls could also digest their masterpieces ? as if they were indigestible already. Or better still, I have scrapped ten bucks to buy a ticket to Lord Of The Rings motion picture, so now I have the permission to call Mr. Peter Jackson and ask him to squeeze some more warrior women in his battle scenes.

So what exactly was wrong with TES IV: Oblivion? Well, it seems that some developers ?blinded by male privilege? made the capital mistake to implement gender attribute diversity in their game and to use male depictions by default in their manual (this part is a preposterous lie ? the manual actually uses female faces, but this is not the point here) and game menus. Both so-called ?gender bias issues? have simple explanations. Differences between genders are something common in real life: males are dumb and strong, females are charming and cunning but fragile. The ?male comes first? issue is just an old convention that started with Adam and Eve (these mighty crusaders should have gotten used to it by now, as this convention hangs around for millennia and it is going to hang around even further, when I and them would have well passed in the Land of the Righteous).

But then again, this is of no concern here. A game is the work/creation of one or more people. They alone are the only ones allowed to choose how things would look in their game. Fortunately, with the boom of the game industry, marketing crap started to take over the basics and with it, people won some power to express and see some of their wishes fulfilled in their favorite game. Unfortunately, there is a group of utterly untalented gamers that, instead of analyzing the ? more and more developed ? gameplay engines and give some support for their improvement find time to pick holes in somebody?s coat.

Women representation in games they say. They deserve it they say, because they are serious clients and all. The vision does not matter. The fact that someone imagined a universe where men have three legs and women look like lizards (Argonians) or cats (Kajiit) and where demon looking creatures (Daedra) with no genital organs want to take over the world is again of no concern. As soon as you have scraped a measly fifty dollars to buy the CD, you have the right to rewrite the whole thing. The nerve, man! It is their universe; they created it and if they say women are both fat and sexy, than they are fat and sexy! After all, where is the thrill playing as a Victorian age governess looking woman?

I am completely lost with these times. Discrimination against men is barely noticed, discrimination against women is shouted from the rooftops. What about Tomb Rider, what about Blood Rayne? Why won?t we, men, get medieval because some game studio gave us a Barbie game? What holds us, raging barbarians, to keep our mouths shut concerning these problems? Probably because we understand that this kind of things depends exclusively on the views of the game artists as it is with all kinds and forms of creation. The creator is the only one in the position to decide on this kind of matters. These are his ideas. If we do not like them (their views), we do not buy the game. As simple as that! Just imagine Sam Fisher being a teenager wearing a size four bullet proof bra, with long blonde hair trickling over her shoulders, and her big blue eyes piercing her foes ? Tom Clancy would?ve had a stroke.

What saddens me is that Bethesda took the time to express their position on this matter. I have never hoped to experience such ridiculousness. Am I missing something here? I believed with all my heart that, according to the definition of ?game?, one should learn and follow its rules, and it is ?inside? this perimeter that one should search for the most efficient way to play it. Today, such principles have been dumped to make room for ludicrous gizmos like customizable main characters, political correctness and such. No wonder games are so lousy these days. With so much fuss around them, the chances that developers have time for creating masterpieces are slim to none. Even a hen would know that struggling to satisfy everyone always ends badly, and the worse part is when all those who sincerely and selflessly supported you become enraged by your concessions.

I honestly believe these kinds of people have no place in the gaming universe, neither their hateful opinions. I honestly doubt their good will and sincerity, as I am also unsure of their passions and knowledge toward the game culture.

Remember: games have nothing to do with politics, with gender, religion or social status. Games are meant to help us clear our minds and loosen up our nerves. I have just remembered an old friend. Gothic, anyone? There is hardly any woman there... Nevertheless, my brother's girlfriend just loved to watch me cracking Orc skulls and acting as hero of Chorinis!

Important note: My article does not - in any way - wish to stand as a misogynist critique toward female gamers. It is meant to be a reply to those ill-intended bloggers who try to meddle with our beloved games and who - from what they have shown - have nothing to do with games and gaming whatsoever.

Go Girls, Go! Where to?

So now, even games are harmful to women. What else?