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I think more female developers doing their own thing and making good games is what we need, but I don't agree that "market forces" or "audience demand" are neutral explanations for the media landscape we live in. It ignores the fact that media production and consumption have a reciprocal relationship. (Indie hits demonstrate that there's no lack of demand for 2D games, but publishers simply wouldn't publish them for about a decade after 2000 because they were believed to be unmarketable.)

More importantly, saying "women need to make more good games" risks placing the responsibility for fixing inequality on the people who are disadvantaged.

It should hardly need to be said that there's no comparison between the racist assertion that a particular ethnic group look alike, and the correct observation that characters created for AAA games look similar.

I think one of the reasons I find it difficult to discuss this with you, KyriakosCH, is that you have an extremely fixed idea of what writing is, or ought to be, and anything that falls outside of that can just be brushed aside as "bad writing".

Heavy Rain is definitely an example of bad, bad writing. But there are plenty of sexist portrayals of women from good writers. There are worthwhile questions to ask about the way the film Alien looks at Ripley taking her clothes off, in a film rightly praised for its portrayal of the female lead.

People have valid concerns, and you can't just dismiss them by saying, "Yes, but almost all game writing is bad, and here are some badly written male characters." It's missing the point.

Writing is a solitary work

This, famously, is the reason that there are no good American sitcoms or long-form dramas. Writers rooms simply don't work, and that's why The Wire was so terrible.

I'm not making generalisations about white men as a group.

I'm talking about "incurious white men", because Heavy Rain is written from the perspective of the white, male protagonist (arguably, the white male designer / imagined player) and the game only approaches making sense if you don't think about any other characters' perspective.

I'm going to leave to one side the idea that whiteness is irrelevant in Europe, because I think you're wrong, but I also think it's beyond the bounds of this thread.

Yeah, if you compare Elaine Marley with her counterpart in Pirates of the Caribbean, she's leagues ahead. She's the Governor, not the Governor's daughter and she's perfectly capable of rescuing herself - until Guybrush messes up her plan. She fulfils a conventional Princess-in-a-tower role - but she does it in individualised way.

By contrast, Heavy Rain's Madison Paige (from a game 20 years later) is an absurdly underwritten character. But Heavy Rain was critically acclaimed - it won 3 BAFTAS here in the UK - and I think it matters when big 'serious' games fail so badly to represent anyone other than deeply incurious (white) men. (I don't want to bang on about how bad Heavy Rain is. But on the other hand, I do, because it's extraordinarily bad.)

I also think Fran Bow is excellent, and made in Gamemaker as far as I remember. (And, though the moment has long passed - I accept that Tintin has an apartment, I just don't think that many specifics are particularly important to his character.)

Grace (Nakamura, iirc) was a cool female character in the game Gabriel Knight. I have only played 1 and 3. Gabriel, on the other hand, was really ridiculous and a stereotype - but a female friend of mine was in love with him, and he was written by a woman in the first place 

I'm sure you don't mean it like this, but I'm not sure why you're listing good female characters and (supposedly) bad male characters as if they offer a counterpoint? It's good that there are well written women, but for as long as there's a demonstrable imbalance in the ways men and women are portrayed in the media, it's worth talking about the kind of tools we can use as writers and critics to tackle biases.

That said, I don't know if Gabriel Knight is a stereotype - a stereotype of what? He may be the archetypal vain heart-throb and I'm sure he's popular with some female players, but he's not written in a way that insults the intelligence of male players.

Yeah, I think the issue is not that there's anything wrong with that painting in its own terms - you don't need to defend Munch. Even if you'd found the perfect example of a naked woman portrayed without the tiniest hint of sexism - it still wouldn't have made sense to present it as a 'gotcha' or counterpoint, if that's how you intended it. It's like saying, 'but these great films don't pass the Bechdel test!' No one thinks that passing the test is the mark of a good film, or that all portrayals of women are sexist.

I am reminded of those cool and feminist arabian princes, who always cover up ancient statues so that the genitals aren't visible. A serious ability to appreciate high art..

This kind of conservatism can be universal, of course. Pope Pius IX actually had statues' genitals removed. But I think you're missing the point Blondbraid has been making. No one is taking offense at nudity per se - I like Munch and I like that painting. But the thread is about sexist representation of women. No one is saying all depictions of women are sexist, so just posting 'good art' of a naked woman doesn't say anything particularly meaningful. I can see why Blondbraid would read it as a cheap joke at her expense, though it sounds like that wasn't your intention.

That said, it's impossible to argue that the man and woman in Munch's painting are represented in the same way just because they're both naked - the woman is standing upright and facing the camera, blocking our view of his genitals. This follows the same pattern as the argument that male and female superheroes are both 'idealised'.

I don't think Dr Lester (the main character in Another World) is a blank canvas... I'd also challenge that Tintin was a blank canvas.

I'm sure you're right about Another World - I haven't played it and was extrapolating from what KyriakosCH said about it. I'm sure I misinterpreted it.

Regarding Tintin, Horowitz was saying that Tintin was visually less characterised, in terms of linework - simple, boyish, neutral. It's not a criticism of the character design or writing. Where does Tintin live? Who are his parents? It's not really important, just like we don't really care what George Stobbart (who might be a lawyer, but it doesn't really matter) was doing before he took a holiday to Paris. I would say being amiable, brave and quite strong are exactly the qualities that would make a somewhat blank character appealing.

I think a pretty apt illustration of the double standard is that when Batman and Robin bombed, executives decided it was simply because it was a badly made film

I wonder if it's relevant that Joel Schumacher was gay, and Batman and Robin is very camp. It was also quite bad. But plenty of gritty, macho action movies bomb and we never come to conclusion that audiences just don't like them.

Like you say, no one watches a bad male comedian concludes that they don't like male comedy, but that often happens with female comedians. And it's a judgement that men and women make, and that is often made on behalf of audiences.

Usually the more specific traits a character has, the more people won't be identifying with them. There are ways to go around this, of course, but they mostly involve the character reacting to something more central (say Big Brother, in 1984; Winston is just a cog in the machine and a reaction to it; most readers would tend to react in a similar way)

I appreciate that, but what I'm getting at is that "being a woman" or "being black" are seen as specific character traits, with which fewer people can identify. The white male protagonist is often treated as neutral and universal, which clearly reflects a social bias.

I heard (the writer) Antony Horowitz making the observation that Tintin was much less well characterised (in terms of drawing) than Hergé's other characters, and expanding on the advantage of having a somewhat blank protagonist for children's stories. And, between Another World and Hitman there are a lot of blank canvas protagonists in games.

But it's interesting to note which characters get to be blank slate protagonists. We seem more ready to embrace it when those characters are the 'default' white, male, straight etc.

I think a bit of historical perspective is welcome - especially for people experiencing hardships because of politicians' incompetence and malice. It's a reminder that things can get better, people can survive and rebuild. But when it's used to deflect from real suffering and to launder the reputations of people responsible, it is - at best - lazy thinking.

It is, of course, hyperbolic to call Donald Trump "a literal Nazi". But it's also somewhat more truthful than calling him "not a Nazi," because he shares many characteristics with racialist, far-right leaders (including enjoying the support of the far-right). I'm not excessively concerned that people saying "Nazi" as a shorthand for "white supremacist right-wing authoritarian" will lead to any genuine confusion.

Meaningless hyperbole drains people, though. If everything is "the worst X ever", then eventually nothing is really the worst. Same for "best X ever".
It's all just the same, as people lose perspective, and the same effect is pretty evident in the polarization of the US, where everyone who disagrees with you is either the devil or a nazi or potentially both. The words themselves lose their meaning.

See: everyone who has said 2020 was the worst year ever, when in reality it was a rather inconvenient year, but for the vast majority of people it wasn't all that bad after all.

The 2004 Tsunami wasn't all that bad for the vast majority of people - just the people affected by the Tsunami. Maybe they should stop moaning - after all, a worse Tsunami might happen in the future?

I'm sorry - I wasn't trying to be snarky! I know you're very widely read and you obviously know your Kafka.

I'm sure you're right that (e.g.) the sister is the antagonist. What I find unappealing about your character breakdown is the idea that she is only there to become the antagonist - that she and all the other characters stand for nothing in their own terms. It seems reductive to me. But I'm not saying you're wrong, just that this kind of character writing doesn't appeal to me.

She didn't generalise about old people as a group, she was lightly critical of old individuals she knows. There's no basis for your speculation that she thinks they are "dribbling idiots". When you say they would rather be shut away in a home than listen to Blondbraid, that is unequivocally a personal attack.

Even if you think the thread has gone off topic (I don't) I don't know why you choose to drop in with personal attacks and non-sequiturs. I thought you wanted to "be excellent to each other."

So, ageism isn't high on your list of subjects worth holding forth on, Blondbraid. You say you know several 'old' people,
who evidently don't know what they are talking about. I suppose in your view they are dribbling idiots who should be
shut away in a home. Mind you, after being subjected to your self opinionated views they would no doubt find it a
blessed release. 

Didn't you just praise LimpingFish for asking us to refrain from deliberately provocative, personal attacks?

It's a long time since I read Metamorphosis, but I have to say that your summary of the characters makes it sound a great deal more dull than I remembered. If the characters are merely there to mechanically perform narrative functions, why bother? I admit, I have a particular dislike for self-conscious symbolism, and narratives in which everyone apart from the protagonist is a sort of puppet.

But still, there's no reason realist literature should be better than symbolist writing when it comes to including women. There's no rule that says symbolist protagonists must be men. The bar for being 'fleshed out' is low. To pass the Bechdel test, you only need two female characters to be interested in something other than a man. It's funny because it's incredibly banal, and also surprisingly rare.

I'm not a particular fan of realism either, but I'm not sure what the relative popularity of Dickens and Collins, or Dostoevsky's declining popularity would tell us?

Most of the people here are writers of one kind or another, and we understand that characters have a structural role to play in narrative. But it's reductive to say that all characters are merely symbols, and it also allows writers to abdicate all responsibility. "You can't be upset about [crude stereotype] because that character was merely a product of my imagination!"