Whoop's I only watched the first 15 seconds before I had to comment.
I will watch the rest but I wanted to comment first.

"...basically all female characters in video games fall into a small handful of cliches and stereotypes"

This is the most overused and "Cliche" comment for women in comics and video games - and I absolutely hate this. OF COURSE they are stereotypes. Have you ever noticed that if you switched the word out for 'male', the statement would also be true?

Games and comics alike are fantasy. The always have been and always will be. They are used to fantasize. If I was going to fantasize, I'd be buff with exaggerated features too as would the object of my desires.

If leading characters were made unattractive and unlikeable, we wouldn't want to be them. We wouldn't want to fantasize about being them or around them.

I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point - now, I'll watch the rest and see if her comments are as cliche as every other reviewer who totes the same launching argument...

Thanks for your patience with this rant

OK, so it looks like this is just a teaser for for a whole series of studies focusing on female characters and the use of cliche roles of women in gaming.

She is correct, games are becoming a more major part of our society and play a leading roll in pop culture. Does it need to be studied to this extent? Maybe, but for feminist purposes, no.

It's a fine line between watchdog and wanting to filter out basic human nature.
The reason these games are successful is partially because of the fantasy aspect. Take away the basic sex appeal and you take away the stimulus for it's appeal.

Lets face it, as humans we crave few things. We crave food, possessions for survival and lets face it, sex (or forms thereof.)

In games, there is usually a health meter and some way of measuring success. This builds on the basic functionality of the game. Then it needs a level of sexy to appeal to our base desires.

Now this isn't exclusive, I'm sure there are games out there which excuses at least one of these in any given formula but when it comes down to it, we crave what we crave and games facilitate that need.

I often think of Diablo and it's appeal to our needs of hunting and gathering instincts. And we are rewarded for the gathering as we advance throughout the game. And along the way we get to fantasize ourselves into one of the powerful characters which all satisfy the requirements of having exaggerated features, one way or another. (even the necro, which has an air of arrogance and demands respect, if not bulging muscles)

I'll round off my comments, though I think I could talk on about this for some time.
We need to cliches in our games. They hold the appeal for us and keep us wanting more.

@Sagemind

A quibble or two aside, just about everything you said, I think, is spot on, but I don't agree with your conclusion that this isn't a useful project, or that video games aren't going to change. What you're missing is that just about every female that we're presented with across all media is from a narrow band of disempowering clichés. It's the "disempowering" part that's key. Yes, there are relatively few male archetypes in video games, but they're almost always valued for their strength, leadership, intelligence, wit, athleticism, skill, sense of humour, bravery, accomplishments, etc. -- in other words, all positive attributes, things most of us would openly encourage in our sons. Women, on the other hand, are almost always portrayed as eye candy, fuck toys, rewards to a man for saving the day, helpless victims, evil bitch nemeses (the only time a woman may commonly achieve self-determination without showing cleavage), selfless helpers of men, and so on, none of which are positive or even neutral models for our daughters.

Awareness of the types of characters we're presenting to children to identify with is important. To a lesser degree, it's also important for adults in terms of not reinforcing those stereotypes. I already consume video games with this kind of critical eye. I'd noticed how cool it was that the Portal games had a main character who's a woman, who's awesome, but who's never sexed up at all. I thought that showed some real balls (ahem) on the part of the developers. Skyrim too seems decent. It has a lot of female characters, and most of them are just whoever they are. None are sexy window dressing, a couple are flirty, and only one that I've come across is overly sexed-up, and then, only in the 1-900-voice-acting department, not her character or appearance.

That two major recent titles avoid female stereotypes is a huge thing, and I think a very positive thing. The more awareness there is of this, the better, IMO.

This video struck up quite the controversy on RockPaperShotgun that we'd never see here on the SIFT, lol, with over 1,000 comments (now that Blankfist is no longer with us of course): http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/13/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games-vs-the-internet/#comments

So, initially I was gonna make a similar comment to sagemind, but then I had a think about it and changed my mind a little.

Ok, so male stereotypes exist too. See the hypermasculine Gears of War etc for example. Still, there are far more examples of male characters who are more than just a cliched exhaggeration of their gender. As a guy you might not identify with the character you have been given, but at the very least there is somewhat more diversity in male stereotypes, the stereotypes are frequently more "positive" then female ones, and there tends to a higher percentage of actual complex, realistic male characters in games. Still not enough, I'd agree, but still they exist.

Secondly, the male stereotypes that do exist aren't sexualised to the degree female characters often are. Sure, they are rarely unattractive, almost always in good shape etc but they aren't really sex objects. Female characters usually are. They are fantasy characters, but they are male imagined fantasy characters. What we have right now is the guy men want to be, and the woman they want to be in bed with. Games made by guys, for guys. I don't think its malicious sexism, its more sexism as a byproduct of a truly unbalanced demographic.

Things are improving. Gamers are getting older and more and more women are getting into games and game development. Perhaps even the male fantasy woman is changing - Alyx is sexy because she is smart, independent and capable, not because she wears a square inch of leather and relentlessly flirts with the main character. Not that I think we should do away with those stereotypes entirely, just that there needs to be a lot more balance and a lot less one dimensional sex objects.

I think messenger puts it kinda well. How many female characters in games would you be happy as a rolemodel for a sister or daughter? Not many.

MAYBE IF BITCHES WOULD START WORKING IN THE GAME INDUSTRY SHIT WOULD CHANGE.

Who the fuck wants to play a game where the babes are dower frumps with short hair and no figure? Seriously, there is nothing aestheticly pleasing about an ordinary everyday gal. That's why they don't feature in pretty much all forms of art and entertainment.
You want to get a guys attention? Stick some nice tits and ass in his face. End of discussion.

Female Shepard...Boom Fuck Off!

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