Sexism of Video Games

Sexism has been predominant in video games for as long as characters and violence have been a part of video games.  The earliest games were too restricted in pixels to develop the avatar into a real character. The player controlled a dot on the screen directly, or indirectly with a joystick and buttons. This type of avatar was generic and void of sexism. When the arcade game Pong was released it was popular among all genders.

As technology progressed, games were able to incorporate more detail.  Game avatars morphed from primitive shapes to gendered characters, thus beginning the long history of sexism in video games.  The new character avatars such as Mario and Pac-Man were all male. Only on occasion would the avatar be female, such as in the sequel to Pac-Man which featured Ms. Pac-Man. Most of the female characters were like Princess Peach; a prize for the avatar character for defeating the evil character. The inability to play the female character gendered video games towards men.

As the graphics in video games continued to improve the focus of video games shifted more towards characters and story.  Unfortunately the player characters remained male, and their stories continued to revolve around violence. An poignant example of sexism in video games is the grand theft auto series. The player's character is male and has the ability to kill any other character in the game.  There are prostitutes in game, all of which are female. One mechanic of the game is the ability of the player character to solicit these women on the street, have them enter the car and replenish the player character's health for money. This mechanics combined with the predominant killing mechanic favored a rape strategy many players would employ to raise their health without losing money: The player would drive to a secluded alley where they wouldn't be seen by other characters, and then when the woman left the car after raising the players health all the way, the player would beat them and take back the money they had just paid for that service and anything else the woman had on her.

Video game have been and continue to be marketed predominantly to males. Games and advertisements for these games are targeted so heavily towards 18-35 year old men, they alienate female players. One recent advertisement on TV for a new First Person Shooter did not show clips from their game in the advertisement, instead they showed clips of woman after woman being appalled at the game they were selling and suggesting it was too violent, too vulgar, and not at all appropriate for anyone.  A spokesman concluded the advertisement claiming the game was not for your mother, but you would love it.  The attitude the advertisement conveys is that men and women like different things, and what they are selling is everything men like that women don't.  This blatant disregard for female preferences in entertainment discourages many women from playing video games at all.

A more famous example of sexism in video games perhaps, was the release of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball in 2003. The game did not feature any of the fighting that the series is know for.  Instead, it was a series of mini-games featuring the female characters from the series wearing only bikinis.  These bikinis could be upgraded with money to be more revealing.  The goal was to form a team and compete in the volleyball competitions.  In the place of a fighting engine, they had a physics engine to calculate the bounce of the breasts of the characters as they jumped up and down on the beach playing volleyball.  The game artists used more polygons in the creation of these characters breasts than technology had been previously capable of, ensuring their characters had the roundest boobs in all video games to date, and a complex physics engine to jiggle them perfectly.

With the rise of casual gaming on the internet, things are starting to change. Game producers are realizing the potential market of non-core gamers and developers are producing games for women.  Many women are making an impact as game developers and producers in the male dominated industry, but the industry continues to be overwhelmingly male dominated and marketing their games mostly towards male gamers.  This is because of the sexism in our sociey and the gender wage gap.  Men have more money to spend, so games are marketed towards men.