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Ok. If you're a gamer and you surf the internet everyday, then you may have heard of the "attempted rape" scene placed in the new Tomb Raider game coming out in 2013. That particular scene unleashed a full scale war between Crystal Dynamics, the media and the gamers, yelling at each other their reasons and opinions.
Jumping over the legitimacy of those beliefs, I'd like to share my own view of what's happening in the industry at the moment.
The presence of an "attempted rape" scene in a game like Tomb Raider, were the main character is a girl, can be deemed as a powerful "identification tool", used by the developers to immerse the player in a whole new dimension of negative emotions, flowing through his/her body as Lara falls victim of a bad man's twisted desire. Beside that, we could say that the developers gave birth to a branched controversy built on two main points: Is raping in videogames acceptable as a form of violence? Is it right to expose a woman character to yet another form of extreme sexism?
When it comes to violent games i'm very open, and I can't really say anything negative because I feel that violence is a very subjective topic. Sure, raping is the most vile criminal act a man could do to a woman, but we usually play worse scenarios than that.
Let's assume that it's violent and unfair to show a raping scene in a game, and that the devs should censor or even erase that part of the script, automatically we're going to presume the same for the thousands criminal acts that a player can commit in almost every game these days. The public shouldn't forget that Modern Warfare 2 had a particular level, were the main character had to kill hundreds of innocents in a russian airport: is mass murder more acceptable than rape in a videogame? Tearing an enemy, a human, apart is a "funny" and acceptable form of entertainment?
Blocking violent scenes in videogames is not the path we should follow, especially when Hollywood's letting you see the same things in a movie. Every nation has rating boards working to tag the right titles for every age category. PEGI, BBFC and ESRB do exist only for that, and it's not industry's fault if a eight years old kid receives Modern Warfare 3 or Gears of War 3 as a gift from his parents, even if those are 18 rated games.
That said, I agree with the ones who think that developers should be more responsible when creating a game. For example, I felt "sick" while watching certain Duke Nukem Forever babes being transformed into alien's breeding bags, and i'm a less-than-susceptible 22 years old guy.
As pointed out by Brandon Sheffield in his "Male Gaze" article, published yesterday on Gamasutra, we're living in a manly industry, were everything has been built around the perspective of thousands of men from the very beginning. When videogames golden era started, people were moving in a male world created for male players. Over time the medium became mainstream and millions of users had the chance to get close and personal with videogames, and the industry began what I would define a "globalization" era. The sad truth behind this seemingly nice scenario is that developers are still working on videogames addressed to a male public, cutting females "out of the game" from the start.
The male public should stop jerking around the internet; instead, we should think about the way we want this industry to grow and change, because nobody will start caring about the matter until we ask it.
Now i'm pretty sure that publishers and developers are unaware of the problem, and the last interview made to Crystal Dynamics Karl Stewart, news by VG24/7, is a clear example.
Excerpt:
“By giving her motivation to become the stronger action-adventure hero and the girl that’s willing to fight to stay alive and move forward throughout the game, we use that device and that intimidation to make her stronger,”
With this statement, Stewart wants Us to believe that Lara can grow stronger after killing a man that tried to rape her, whereas the theme of lone survival on an outwardly deserted island could have done the job without any problem. Seeing a "powerful" badass rubbing his hands on Lara's body is a depiction that the industry should avoid.
It's time to admit it: while playing a Tomb Raider game we never empathized with Lara, instead we cared only about her body and ability to kill everybody on the way like a badass. That is the exact depiction of a woman that a bunch of testosterone-filled guys would bring on screen for the public; a female character with a great, sexy, body, and a bag full of lethal weapons and degrading one-liners. Almost every famous action woman in modern videogames follows those lines, and that is why we shouldn't pass from a "badass" Lara to a girl you should "care" about in a weak-minded setting.
Believe it or not, it is possible to play and enjoy games made by women, with a total lack of oversexualized characters and violent sexual references. A good example can be Jade Raymond from Ubisoft Toronto. She is the mind behind Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II and Splinter Cell: Blacklist: three games were female characters are not humiliated by invisible dresses and "delicate situations". Beside that, Jade Raymond has been handled like a top model by her publisher, and tons of fashon-like photoshoots of her can be found on Google and on the internet, and it's kinda sad to think that a player should buy a game just because a good-looking woman worked on it.
Something began to change lately, and games like Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us showed appealing concepts without abusing of a female character.
We're grown up enthusiasts playing games, and it's time to talk about it and ask for something better. Not only for Us but for the public as a whole.
