Growing up, boys and girls each
have their own set of toys that society expects them to like. Boys play with
toy cars, dinosaurs, and video games. Girls play house, dress up, and brush
their dolls’ hair.
Luckily, millennials are coming of age
in a time where it is becoming more and more acceptable for gender roles to be
reversed. The amount of girl gamers has been increasing and video game
companies are starting to target their products more towards women.
I picked today's game because I feel it is important to address the evolution of female video game characters.
I picked today's game because I feel it is important to address the evolution of female video game characters.
When the video game industry
was directed almost exclusively towards men, the few female characters that
most games had were over sexualized. Developers believed this was what
consumers wanted.
But now, a lot of games have
been introducing strong female leads. Characters such as Jade from Beyond Good & Evil, Samus Aran from Metroid, and Zoe Castillo from Dreamfall are some of the original kick-ass female protagonists.
There are even a few strong women who are not main characters. One example is Ellie from The Last of Us.
Ellie is a powerful teenage
girl. She is found orphaned in a post-apocalyptic world. Ellie befriends the protagonist, Joel,
who has recently lost his daughter.
When the game was first
released in 2013, some were worried that it wouldn’t sell very well with a female
character pictured on the front cover.
They were wrong.
According to IGN, The Last of Us has been a very successful game despite concerns.
This illustrates the growing
acceptance of strong female characters in video games.
I did not have a chance to play
this game myself as I do not own or have access to a PS3 or PS4, but I love
that it aligns with our blog’s concept of girl gamers, so I felt the need to
review the characters.
If you would like to learn more
about Ellie and the complexity of her character, I recommend reading this article published by
The Huffington Post.
What are your favorite games with strong female leads?
I really enjoyed reading about female protagonists in video games! Video games seem to be male-oriented and video game companies try to appeal to males more than females by creating male protagonists, but highlighting the female characters broadens the audience.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you talked about video games centered around female characters. I personally don't play video games, but the ones that I have seen have mainly male characters . The last link that you posted was a smart move so that you could keep your word count down but at the same time, give your readers more information if they wanted it.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you introduced a video game that worked out great and explained how they didn't think it would work well with a girl on the cover!
ReplyDeleteI believe that video games are excellent venues for developing feminist ideals. As feminism works to dissolve gender barriers, video games become less "taboo" among girls; and, as any teenager or young adult needs, a gamer girl will look to seek out role models in strong female leads. One of my favorite video games that features quite the formidable lead female protagonist is Perfect Dark. In the N64 classic, Joanna Dark represented a character of equivalent appeal to James Bond, her male counterpart. As a boy, even I felt compelled to play Perfect Dark from start to finish as it followed Joanna's exploits. I believe that as the video game industry develops even further with improved graphics, complex mechanisms and features, and evolved storytelling, that strong female leads will become increasingly more important in a multitude of ways.
ReplyDelete