Damsels All The Way Down

[Note: this post was written in late 2013/early 2014 but has all this time been sitting unpublished in my drafts, as its length caused it to drag on beyond the point where I no longer cared for the subject. As such some info and links may be out of date and some parts may be left relatively unfinished by the time I finally publish this in 2017.]

A while ago I was asked to comment on the Tropes vs Women Tumblr page, which currently is a list of supposed damsels in distress to show a pervasive problem of women in video games. Now one of the suggestions was for me to do a similar list of male characters in distress. That sounds like an exhausting amount of work for very little benefit so I won't be doing that. I will however use examples of the supposedly elusive dude in distress to further showcase how flawed and biased Anita Sarkeesian's research method really is. 

Now once again for the sake of disclosure: my position is that Damsels in Distress are an overused plot device, with that core premise I agree. Where I disagree is that the plot device is inherently bad and/or inherently damaging to women. In that respect I think Tropes vs Women is needlessly alarmist, terribly one-sided and overall very poorly researched. I am not here to argue that Damsels in Distress (or sexism for that matter) isn't a thing, just that there are enough legitimate examples so that we don't need to manufacture false ones and doing so only delegitimizes the complaint.
My overall position is that a very simple increase in female protagonists would level out most of the problems (and a big problem standing in the way is the simple fact that female protagonists rarely sell well, so it's not just on the industry itself to push for some changes but on the audience as well). Trying to censor through shaming what people can and can't put in their artistic endeavors is not something I can get behind.

No matter how much you would like to think so, I did not send Anita Sarkeesian any death threats and I do not condone people doing so. I do not even wish to silence her (which is a courtesy she or the gaming media have not granted people who don't share "the right opinion"). However I do not think she produces content that deserves any more recognition than it being a simple, frankly misinformed, opinion of a YouTuber.

(Check out my Damsel in Distress post for more on that)

Damsels All The Way Down

Pictured: Doesn't exist

1. A Look at the Definitions

1.1 Defining the Damsel in Distress

In her first video Anita Sarkeesian defines a Damsel in Distress as follows (and I will highlight the important bits for further clarity, as they will change a bit later on):

"As a trope the damsel in distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist's quest. 

- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women 

In practice however her examples of damsels turn out to be whatever clip or screenshot she can show you of an inconvenienced female character under the assumption that her audience won't question anything about it. It doesn't matter that the person rescuing the damsel is actually a female character, whether she's the core motivation or whether she's important to the plot at all.

Part of the explanation why she finds so many examples not fitting her actual definition is that just a bit later on she tries to sneak another, much more lenient definition of the damsel in distress past us. 

"All that is really required to fulfill the damsel in distress trope is for a female character to be reduced to a state of helplessness from which she requires rescuing by a typically male hero for the benefit of his story arc."

- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women.

'Perilous situation' and 'core incentive or motivation' are reduced to a mere state of helplessness and the hero is no longer male but typically male. So while she starts out with a reasonable and fairly strict definition that would also be reasonable given her later definition of Dude in Distress, she ends up opening it up so much that every inconvenienced female character can count as long as she isn't the player protagonist. As we will see later, she refuses to look at Dudes in Distress with the same leniency. 

1.2 Why Damsels are Bad

However that's not all, another problematic aspect of her definition happens just a paragraph before her original definition of the Damsel in Distress.

"The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure to passive victim in someone else's game illustrates how the Damsel in Distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own rite [sic]"

- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women

This is true for Krystal having a reduced role in Star Fox Adventures (I won't go into detail how her characterization of Dinosaur Planet and Krystal was wrong, that's been done before by plenty of people), however this is problematic for several other games in the list, especially since this statement happens as the general introduction to the topic. In fact she even goes on to reinforce it later on.

"In this way the Damsel's ordeal is not her own, instead it's framed as a trial for the hero to overcome. Consequently, the trope robs women in peril of the opportunity be [sic] the architects of their own escape and therefore prevents them from becoming archetypal heroes themselves."

- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women

This becomes problematic because it assumes that the damsel'ed character is the only female character available in the game, and thus the main protagonist has to be male. Furthermore it makes the assumption that the damsel'ed character is hero-material in the first place, not everyone has the skills or fortitude to become a hero and that's what makes characters different from each other (unsurprisingly, not every male character is cut out to be a hero either). It also becomes problematic for female characters who become playable once rescued, since they do become heroes in their own right.

In fact, if Dinosaur Planet was released as planned, it would be incredibly probable (considering its late release in the N64 life cycle) that the game wouldn't have found an audience at all and Krystal—despite having been this awesome protagonist—would have been completely forgotten. Her being a damsel in Star Fox Adventures however meant she eventually became a beloved member of the Star Fox team playable in Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Command and frequently petitioned (though so far ignored) as a fighter for Super Smash Bros. Krystal became a beloved character while her predecessor, Vela from Jet Force Gemini (a game which was released with her as a main protagonist in a cast of three), has been largely forgotten by the mainstream public and is unlikely to resurface soon.

In the context of this last statement she also mirrors the player character escaping on her own to a non-player character having to be rescued as if they are on a level playing field. This is obviously misleading because the player character—by virtue of being the player character—is there to solve the problems of the people he or she encounters. This is basic player agency. What Anita doesn't do at all is mirror female damsel'ed characters to male characters in distress, which is a more reasonable comparison. At most we get a very short segment in part 3 where she shows a very short list of examples where female characters have to save their boyfriend (and this time she does hold the examples specifically to the definition and even misses a lot of notable examples, unlike when she lists Damsels in Distress where she grabs everything she can with a passing glance pass off as a damsel). We will get back to that when I discuss Dudes in Distress. 

"Second, and perhaps more importantly, damsel'ed female characters tend to reinforce pre-existing regressive notions about women as a group being weak or in need of protection because of their gender, ..."

- Damsel in Distress (Part 3) Tropes vs Women

So we have a problem here that's never resolved. Anita only ever talks about damsels as if they are the only female representation in the game, and thus as a whole represent women. If female protagonists or otherwise capable female characters are available, it means certain examples only count because Anita personally feels that they do. If there are male characters who also are completely incapable of escaping, it doesn't count (read: isn't even mentioned) because the protagonist is male and "larger, cultural patterns" (because men are so disposable they aren't even considered. Instead of subverting stereotypes, Anita is reinforcing them when they are convenient). 

The Sassette Principle

Considering what Tropes vs. Women was meant to be, that's perhaps the most damning of all. This isn't a simple YouTube vlog where a person is giving her subjective opinion on certain issues, this is a well-funded project intending to be at least somewhat academic (and infamously claimed to be by MovieBob). 

1.3 A Game Of Numbers

Then there's the issue of "just how many of these damsel games are there"? Anita's Tumblr blog devoted to chronicling Damsel in Distress games reached 400 entries on February 18 and continues to grow. For the moment forgetting that certain games don't need to be there at all (we'll get into that later, and from my own limited knowledge it makes no major difference to the number anyway). On its own that certainly seems like an enormous amount of games.
However that data isn't offset by anything. There are no lists for alternate scenarios. We aren't shown how many times a male character is in distress. All we have is over 400 examples of screens of women seemingly in peril. We aren't even made aware of how large the pool of potential games are. *
That last piece of missing data we can fill in ourselves with a rough estimation though, flawed as the eventual numbers will inevitably be. To get a rough idea, let's take a look at the lists of games for platforms we find on Wikipedia and what number they put as the amount of games released. (List of Video Games)

Nintendo Entertainment System: 709 licensed, 113 unlicensed games.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System: 784 official releases.
Nintendo 64: 387 official releases.
Wii: 1222 games.
WiiWare: 458 games.
Wii U: 324 games (as of March 31, 2014)
GameCube: 648 games.
Game Boy: 716 games.
Nintendo DS: 1150 games.
Nintendo 3DS: 494 (as of March 20, 2014).

We are out of major Nintendo platforms (minus Game Boy Advance, for which I found no number) and already we have a staggering 7005 video games. We have only looked at platforms released by Nintendo, and already we can see that, according to the Tropes vs Women Tumblr, one of the most basic plotlines imaginable can only be found in a comparatively small handful of titles.
Two possible explanations for this are that Anita's extensive list is actually extremely limited and there are a large amount of games she is so far unaware of, or that her overemphasis on the pervasiveness of the damsel in distress plot device is simply misguided. Either way the data she presents holds very little value. All we have right here is an extension of Tvtropes Damsel in Distress page presented for the sake of outrage.

And that's just the games on Nintendo platforms. Let's see how many the other major platforms add to that amount.

PlayStation: 2418 games.
PlayStation 2: 3870 games.
PlayStation 3: 795 games (multi-platform: 635; exclusive: 150; console exclusive: 10)
PlayStation Portable: 809 games

Sega Master System: 318 games.
Sega Genesis / Mega Drive: Over 900.
Sega CD: 220 games.
Sega Saturn: 596 games.
Game Gear: 363 games.

Xbox: 967 games.
Xbox 360: 1119 games (multi-platform 919; exclusive: 187; console exclusive: 72)

Once again I would like to stress that I agree that the Damsel in Distress plotline is often used as a lazy justification and we could stand to shake things up a little. That doesn't take away that the numbers presented by Anita Sarkeesian are basically meaningless for the argument she's trying to make.

*[2017 Note: When I mention my personal collection of games with female protagonists (over 500), my critics are eager to point out there's a more massive amount of male protagonists out there, which isn't the point I'm trying to refute. I'm not arguing there's a roughly equal share of male and female protagonists, I'm pointing out there's easily enough to fill even a hardcore enthusiast's library with more quality games than they could reasonably even play through.]

Luis Sera - Resident Evil 4

2. The Other Side of the Gender Barrier

2.1 Dudes in Distress

As I said earlier, the elusiveness of Dudes in Distress is mostly the result of Anita strictly holding to her own definition with the genders reversed, while not doing so with the straight up definition. In my original thoughts on Damsels in Distress (3.3 Dudes and Boyfriends in Distress) I already briefly discussed this and agreed that there is a hole to be filled when strictly speaking about female characters saving their love interests. However there is no shortage whatsoever when it comes to men having to be rescued, or even for women being the ones to rescue them. 

"But what about the reverse? Are there games starring heroic women who must go on a quest to save a dude in distress?"

- Damsel in Distress (Part 3) Tropes vs Women

That is indeed the reverse of her original Damsel in Distress definition, the one she abandons almost immediately after defining it, but it's not the reverse of the definition she actively uses throughout her series or on her Tumblr. If we were to look at men needing rescue the same way Anita looks at women needing rescue, our list would be phenomenally large very quickly.

Consider the following:

• The sequel to Donkey Kong is Donkey Kong Jr., in which Donkey Kong needs to be rescued. 
• When thinking about distress victims, you probably immediately remember having to save Princess Zelda during the last hour of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Did the 4 carpenters locked up in Gerudo Fortress spring to mind just as easily? What about the Gorons in the Fire Temple?
• You need to rescue Meryl Silverburgh in Metal Gear Solid? What about DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and the president of ArmsTech Kenneth Baker? Richard Ames in Metal Gear Solid 2? Sokolov in Metal Gear Solid 3? ALL of whom turn out to be Disposable Dudes.
• In the Metal Slug series, you rescue *100's* of male POW's. Per game!.
• "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" - one of several Toads you just saved in Super Mario Bros.
• In Super Mario Bros. 3, you rescue 7 male Mushroom Kings before you get to the princess. 

Super Mario Bros 3.

But from the above list only Metal Slug allows us to play as a female character through character select. Certainly we can do better. Let's also take a look at several games (some very high profile ones) where a female protagonist goes out to rescue men, yet somehow fell under Anita's radar while she scrounges for any and all Damsels in Distress for her list.

"The two may appear the same, but they don't mean the same thing in our culture. This [damsel] is still a problem while this [dude] is not. Again, because one reinforces pre-existing stereotypes about women, while the other does not re-enforce any pre-existing stereotypes about men."

- Damsel in Distress (Part 3) Tropes vs Women

Except it clearly does. Men are seen as disposable, so much so that them being put in distress isn't even taken seriously. Them being put in a position where they require saving is very often just a side quest not relevant (certainly not memorable) to the main story. It would absolutely be productive to create more narratives in which the disempowerment of men is used for the purpose of sympathy because stereotypically they simply don't get that sympathy. They are a joke and Anita herself highlights this by showing the Chippendale alternative to Spelunky's damsel. 

"To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."  

Peter Marin, Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare - Jack Becomes Homeless

2.2 But Men Don't Have To Show Their Gamer Cred

All in all I think debates over who or what is a "true gamer" is irrelevant. No one except you can tell you whether you like video games or not. However a lot of people, both supporters, detractors and the people behind Feminist Frequency themselves, make a big deal out of it so I'll address it.

A common defense for accusations that Anita Sarkeesian isn't a gamer has been to point out that only female gamers are asked to "prove their gamer cred". Such as in an opinion article written by Jonathan McIntosh, producer of Tropes vs Women in Video Games:

"4. I will never be asked to "prove my gamer cred" simply because of my gender."
- Playing with privilege

In this case he tries to weasel himself against refutation by specifically adding "because of my gender" added. Of course someone of the same gender isn't going to question someone else of the same gender to prove their gamer status because of their gender. This is simply a tactic to make it seem like critics (and again, actual critics) dismiss her status in the gamer in-group because of her gender rather than her blatant lack of knowledge and subsequent inability to address any of the criticisms in a reasonable manner. Even if all we knew about Anita Sarkeesian was her gender and her declaration of being a gamer, the request to prove it might have to do with her gender (even though it still would still be nothing more than simple skepticism).
However, we do know several things about Anita Sarkeesian. Even before Tropes vs. Women in Video Games she had made false statements regarding Bayonetta (which seemed to indicate she had drawn her conclusions from nothing more than the trailer) and used Fable 2 as an example of a male-driven revenge quest for a female family member (Fable 2 has a customizable hero, as such it is not male-driven). These were red flags oddly similar to how news media talks about video games without knowing anything about them, and this was long before her Kickstarter had begun.

"This trope is when the media reports blatantly incorrect facts about a creative work that any fan would know to be wrong."

- Tvtropes, Cowboy Bebop at His Computer

Rather than her having to prove she's a gamer because she is a women, she is asked to do so because fans of video games pick up on the large amount of inaccuracies of her statements. If you think men are let off easily, one needs to look no further than the hatred the Irate Gamer has inspired since 2007 (who in some circles is still heavily flamed). The large amount of inaccuracies in his (especially early) videos as well as the controller not being turned on also made a lot of people question his status as a gamer. The most common accusation being that he just bought a bunch of old games from eBay to pretend to be a gamer.

This is all before taking into consideration her video game footage wasn't recorded herself, but taken from Let's Plays. Despite the evidence being readily available and widely known since July 2013, Anita still claims she records her own footage.

"For research and recording video game footage I use the El Gato Game Capture High Definition Game Recorder to collect gameplay. I have a number of systems including Xbox One, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 2, Wii, Wii U, Sony's Playstation Vita, a Nintendo 3DS XL. I also use the El Gato box to capture iOS games on my iPad and iPhone with an HDMI adaptor."

- Anita Sarkeesian, The Setup (March 04, 2014)

You can't just ignore these issues and contradictions and not expect someone to start asking some questions. How is it not shifty to proudly list your capture devices after it has been shown at least the vast majority of it was ripped from YouTube videos?

But then there's another issue. Namely:

Every modern gaming console records gameplay hours or achievements in some fashion.

Instead of some actual evidence, we get some sad short story on Twitter about how she wasn't taken seriously when she was younger either. All that would have been needed to put this stuff to rest were some picture of console accounts with the hours and some identifier visible (obviously the account name would need to be obscured considering the potential harassment).

But also I have to wonder how closely these people have been paying attention to the gaming community when they think only women are being asked to prove their gamer cred. This is basically the very first thing anyone has to do to show authority on the subject, and also the first thing anyone will bring up to take down an opposing party (usually in relation to the console wars). For example, here's a couple of YouTube videos in which male gamers call other male gamers out on not being (real) gamers.
The7thlevl - The Last Nail in the Coffin of Hate 3: A (Ndub) Nation Mourns
RiseToTheBottom - Blackbuster and his supporters arent true gamers!!
TheTruthBToldShow - The Genius of "Real", Multi-console Gamers
Zephyrnix - @TruthBToldShow EXPOSED? Prove to us your a BIG gamer like us!

Only women are being questioned for their gamer cred? What community have you been looking at?

3. Other Contradictions and Oddities

3.1 Krystal: The Game That no on Ever Got to Play

"However the Japanese game already had 4 playable characters, so the designers opted to include Toad and the Princess to fill the two remaining slots, building directly on top of the older pre-existing character models. So really, if we’re honest, Peach is kinda, accidently [sic] playable in this one."
- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women

Going back to Anita's glorified-yet-false description of Dinosaur Planet, she makes a big deal out of the game being altered to fit the StarFox franchise. However when talking about Super Mario Bros 2, which was adapted from Doki Doki Panic (1987), she dismisses Princess Toadstool (later Princess Peach) being playable as "accidental".
For the audience this tactic is meant to invoke the feeling that we were denied this fantastic game Dinosaur Planet, while the exact opposite happening is minimized as "accidental" and thus completely unimportant.(of course no mention that the same developer during the same timeframe replaced James Bond with the female Joanna Dark for Perfect Dark (2000), Banjo-Kazooie (1998) and Banjo-Tooie (2000) also having both a male and female protagonist at once, or that Dinosaur Planet seemed to be a primitively-themed spiritual sequel to the very much existing Jet Force Gemini (1999) featuring as playable characters a boy, a girl and their dog).
Even if we go with the original version of Doki Doki Panic, the original cast had 2 female characters who were added completely intentionally. Again, why minimize positive examples and maximize negative ones when the numbers already speak in your favor?

3.2 Zelda: Timing Player Input

"Disguised as Sheik she is a helpful and active participant in the adventure and is shown to be more than capable, however as soon as she transforms back into her more stereotypically feminine form of Princess Zelda, she is kidnapped within 3 minutes. Literally 3 minutes, I timed it."
- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women

This is a criticism often levied against the Disney movie Mulan (1998) which follows logic I simply do not understand. The criticism is that the women only get by in these worlds by having to dress as men. So? Does this not show that these women are perfectly capable of holding their own with the men? Simply dressing as a man does not grant one special man-powers.
Ganondorf did not capture Zelda because now it was clear she was actually a woman, and ... well women belong in cages, I guess. She was captured because she was the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom and the uncrowned queen of Hyrule. Capturing her was a way for Ganondorf to extend his power. Of course he also required Link's Triforce of Courage, but dialogue in the game suggests Ganondorf was perfectly confident in the fact that Link would storm his castle anyway and that a kid from the forest was no direct threat to him. Zelda, on the other hand, had proven that she was perfectly willing to disguise herself and sabotage his plans from the shadows for years. Also she had more direct knowledge and control over the powers of the Triforce, while Link just discovered he had it. Ganondorf saw Zelda as more dangerous than Link, which is why she had to be removed.

My further elaboration on this subject can be found in The Ordeal of Queen Zelda.

This probably should also have been an early indicator that she was watching Let's Play footage when making this series. It's not a simple scene you just watch, it involves a lot of text that requires player input to continue. Using "it literally takes 3 minutes" as an argument for this segment and hammering it home is like saying you were timing how look it took for you to read a few pages from a book and using that as a generalized argument, it doesn't make sense. If the player puts their controller down to go out for lunch, they wouldn't even need to pause the game for that scene to take 5 hours.

3.3 Double Dragon Neon and Regressive Crap

Most recently Double Dragon Neon in 2012 re-introduced new gamers to this repressive crap yet again, this time is full HD.
- Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women

This is where I address MovieBob for a minute. His argument to support this statement was that Double Dragon aspires to BE regressive crap because that was part of the charm. That's right, Bob, except you and I see it for the parody that it is and love the game for it. Anita makes the argument that this is a bad thing and shouldn't exist. 

4. Closing Thoughts

In closing, most of these issues would be forgivable if Anita Sarkeesian were a mere regular YouTuber offering her opinion on female representation in video games, but for a person with an academic background who received 160.000$ in Kickstarter money to provide in-depth analysis, who keeps collecting money and who is being awarded left and right by the gaming press, this is extremely shoddy. Tropes vs Women in Video Games is the opinion of one person (at most a small handful) masqueraded as something much larger than that. Her being one of the only big names pointing out these things is not an excuse, it should be even more reason to hold her claims to scrutiny.

Now what remains is a list of examples of games found in either her Damsel in Distress videos or Tumblr I found either questionable or outright wrong. If the game has alternate scenarios that go unexplored ( for example, dudes in distress) I will also point those out. Spoilers might occur.

X. Addendum

X.1 Examples of Failing the Definition

We can assume most of the examples she lists fit according to her loosest definition by which Damsel in Distress means a female character who could essentially just be inconvenienced for it to count. Let's see a couple of examples that no longer fit when we actually hold her to her claims rather than the excuses and moved goalposts she piles on later on. Blatantly wrong examples are marked in red.

(This will also be limited to the the games I personally have played.)

Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
- Female character not prevented from being the hero-
- One of the rescuers is always female-

It's given away in the title: the main characters are Banjo and Kazooie. They both work together to overcome Gruntilda's challenges and save Tootie. Kazooie, aside from being the hot-tempered wise-cracker of the two, is also female. The Jinjos (who aren't recognizable by gender) have to be rescued by the dozens. In the sequel (Banjo-Tooie), Bottles the Mole becomes the character to be rescued.

Batman: Arkham City (2011)

- Talia is not a Damsel in Distress-

It's certainly a convincing shot of Talia Al Ghul being kept at gunpoint by the "Joker". Not shown is the follow-up where she easily breaks free and stabs him. Turns out her being a damsel was just for the purpose of retrieving Mr. Freeze's cure and killing Joker, since Batman never could. A character merely pretending to be a damsel who can easily escape and kill her captor doesn't fit Anita's definition of a Damsel in Distress. She barely fits her "everything goes" definition.

For a list of Dudes in Distress for Batman: Arkham City, you can start by checking out the list of political prisoners, who tend to be the objective for several rescue missions. Even Mr. Freeze at one point needs to be rescued from the Penguin. As mentioned above, at one point Catwoman has to rescue Batman himself (and with Catwomen often being Batman's love interest, this would be a literal reversal fitting Anita's Dude in Distress).

Borderlands 2 (2012)

-Angel is not a Damsel in Distress-
-Possible Female Hero-

Extensively discussed in Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

In short: the protagonists were not motivated to save Angel at any point, she was not in a perilous situation, she was not planning on escaping and the protagonist can very well be female.

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (1999)

-Female not prevented from being the hero-

Ada herself certainly fits the definition of a Damsel in Distress. She has been kidnapped by Dracula's minions and is set up to be used as a sacrifice to resurrect him (although that's just a ruse to lure Cornell). So what's the problem? 

Carrie Fernandez

Well the fact that the game has multiple characters and storylines. Cornell having to rescue Ada is merely the prologue of Legacy of Darkness' main story and results in the resurrection of count Dracula. The people who actually get to go up against Dracula in this incarnation are Reinhardt Schneider (from the Belmont clan) and Carrie Fernandez (of Belnades blood). Anita's explanation that DiD's rob female characters of the chance to be heroes in their own right only holds up with the literal expectation that all damsel'ed characters themselves should have been heroes. It falls apart when you consider that other female characters can either do the saving or go on their own adventures. 

In terms of dudes in distress, during Cornell's adventure he also has to rescue a boy named Henry, who grows up to become a knight and sets off to Dracula's castle to save six other kidnapped children (3 male, 3 female).

Playable protagonists from
Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (1993)

-Female not prevented from being the hero-

Same as the previous example, the danger in listing Castlevania games is that the main male protagonist (usually a Belmont) is often offset by a female protagonist (usually a Belnades). In Rondo of Blood we find Maria Renard (a distant relative of the Belmonts) as our female protagonist who is rescued early in the game and unlocked as playable. She is thus not prevented from being a hero and it doesn't even take long to have her available.
Its sequel Symphony of the Night also has Richter Belmont as the one being kidnapped while Maria Renard sets out to save him (although she herself is not playable).

Final Fantasy VII (1997)

-Female not prevented from being a hero-

The thing about Final Fantasy games is that the people you tend to have to go rescue are also members of your party, which includes Aerith. Not only that, but also playable are beloved characters such as Yuffie Kisaragi and Tifa Lockhart.

Golden Axe III (1993)

- Possible Female Rescuer-

The screenshot shows us our masculine male protagonist and the equally masculine panther co-op character. A player preferring female characters would have been playing as Sahra Burn. 

Screenshot altered to highlight all player characters

Resident Evil 4 (2005)
- Female not prevented from being the (anti-)hero-

In Resident Evil 4, Leon Kennedy sets out to rescue the president's daughter. It being a damsel in distress according to the general definition is no question. However the slight against Anita's claims are the fact that Ada Wong is running around helping and rescuing Leon during his mission. Despite being the player character, Leon can't overcome these situation without Ada's help.
In the bonus content of PlayStation 2 and later releases she even becomes a player character in her own missions and story modes.






Spelunky (2009)
- Female not prevented from being the hero-

In part 3 of Damsel in Distress, we are shown how the damsel can be switched out with a dog or a man. What we aren't shown is that there are multiple player characters, with a female one being available right from the start and several being unlockable.

Of course you should forget that swapping out character models to tailor a game to your preferences is one of the primary strengths video games have. Using Spelunky as an example just brings to mind that H.L. Mencken quote: "Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be having a good time." Since what kind of character you're using or what kind of damsel you're rescuing is up to the player.

TimeSplitters 2 (2002)

- Female Hero-

Viola

The TimeSplitters series has a very disjointed story. Only in the third game is there some sort of consistency. For TimeSplitters 2 the story is about two space marines, Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart (the female co-op player) who go back in time to retrieve the time crystals from several points in the past. Notable is that in each time period the player character somehow becomes a different character based on the level's theme. In the 1895 Notre Dame Cathedral level (pictured above), the player character becomes a female traveling troubadour in jester outfit named Viola.
Not only that, but outside of the story mode ALL of the characters appearing (and several who don't appear) are playable including the very maidens you were supposed to save. For a game which thrives on multiplayer experience, this is a rather big deal.







TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (2005)
- Female not prevented from being the hero -
- Jo-Beth Casey is not a damsel in distress -

Kitten Celeste is tied to the tracks in the level pictured above and Jungle Queen is equally kidnapped. Jo-Beth Casey however is simply the co-op character for her particular level (among others such as Joanna Dark expy Amy Chen). Her being listed as a damsel is simply wrong. Similar to TimeSplitters 2, other female characters appear as co-op partners for Cortez.
Also like TimeSplitters 2, this game is also multiplayer intensive and all characters, including Kitten Celeste and Jungle Queen, are playable.

X.2 Questionable Examples

Disney's Aladdin (Sega Mega Drive / Genesis - 1993)

-Princess not actually relevant-

A particular example I found bewildering was the above screen of Aladdin for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. I played that game over and over again in my childhood and I don't remember Jasmine even being in the story. True enough, this screen appears in the game and it does say "Save princess Jasmine", but the rest of the onscreen narrative (and there's a lot of it) only ever refers Jasmine as the girl Aladdin met in the market who turned out to be the princess. Her sprite doesn't even appear until the end credits. The rest of the story is about Jafar tricking Aladdin into finding the scarab needed to access the Cave of Wonders, and then going after him when he steals the lamp from Aladdin. No hint whatsoever that Jasmine was in peril or in particular need of rescuing beyond this single screen in the beginning, yet good enough for Tropes vs Women to count as a Damsel in Distress.  

Not pictured: Jasmine in a cage

This is especially telling when in the past she dismissed Bechdel Test examples because the dialog wasn't long enough. It counts or doesn't count not because it fits or doesn't fit a definition, but because she wants to show you how bad the current situation in gaming is based on how many examples she can conjure up, legitimate or not.

Devil May Cry 4 (2008)

-Poor example to a talking point-

In her video Anita shows a clip of Devil May Cry 4 in which Nero reaches out for Kyrie while she is being kidnapped. Then she goes on a rant about unsophisticated male power fantasies about brooding male heroes and anti-heroes with Nero's picture in the back.

Nero getting kidnapped himself

Except Nero's brooding male hero power fantasy is cut short when he himself gets kidnapped very shortly after Kyrie, forcing the switch in protagonists to the wise-cracking Dante halfway through the game, who sets out to save Nero rather than Kyrie.

Furthermore Kyrie is in the definite minority when it comes to kickass female characters in the Devil May Cry series. Far more prominent are Lady and Trish, who are presented as more or less Dante's equals (and both have since become playable in the Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition).

Devil May Cry 3 - Lady in Battle

Metal Gear Solid & Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
-Very poor example to a talking point-

Her footage, actually from Twin Snakes (2004)

What Metal Gear Solid (1998) actually looks like

Johnny Sasaki's butt crack is a male power fantasy

Metal Gear Solid appears in the series (actually it doesn't, she mistakes Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the original Metal Gear Solid) as an example of a male hero (Solid Snake) being able to escape on his own while female characters can't. Except Meryl escaping on her own is exactly what happens near the beginning of the game while Snake gets help from Otacon (which she even shows in her own video because the ketchup in Snake's inventory is given to him by Otacon while in prison).
Also Snake's breakout happens after Meryl's, so it's unlikely she played the game at all otherwise she would have known this.

X.3 Some Examples of Missed Dudes in Distress

What I'm looking for is a female protagonist having to save a man or men, not counting games with optional protagonists where the narrative doesn't change based on that choice. So for example, I won't count Borderlands 2 even though you can play as a female character saving men because the events play out exactly the same when playing as a male character. Needless to say, should we count games with optional protagonists the list would be nearly endless since a ton of RPG's would qualify.


Ariel - The Little Mermaid (1992) - King Triton
No Prince Eric in this game. You play as Ariel (or King Triton, in which case the roles are reversed, possibly making this a borderline example based on my definition. However, I list this game because of Ariel's importance as the assumed protagonist and the main character for the movies & series) and you have to go through levels, saving the other merpeople and eventually defeat Ursula to rescue King Triton.

Batman: Arkham City (2011) - Batman
Batman trapped under rubble, Catwoman has to make a moral decision: does she leave Arkham City with the loot she stole from the vault, or does she go back to save Batman? (Hint: leaving Arkham City results in the ending where Gotham City gets destroyed)

Blood of the Werewolf (2013) - Nickoli (Released after DiD part 3)
Selena's husband has been murdered and her child stolen. She must use her werewolf powers to get him back and take revenge.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (2008) - Villagers, Albus
For all the examples Anita lists and the time she spends talking about it, I find it peculiar how no mention is made of Order of Ecclesia. In it Shanoa has to chase Albus (who is succumbing to Dracula's influence) while he kidnaps villagers. This all ends in a heartbreaking boss fight where he is beyond saving and has to be killed (thus becoming a Euthanized Dude, a concept so alien to Anita that she thinks it's supposed to be humorous when it shows up).

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (2009) - Icarus
This was a personal standard I had set for Damsel in Distress Part 3. While probably not very well known in the mainstream, it was one of the best publicized and best received releases for the WiiWare service (not in the least bit because it was a platformer reminiscent of Kid Icarus). In it Nyx travels the surface world of ancient Greece in search of Icarus who has fallen from the sky.

Onyanko Town (1985)
A mother cat called Milky has to navigate a hostile town to rescue her son Michael.

Perfect Dark (2000) - Several
Joanna Dark has to save a scientist named Dr. Caroll, her boss Daniel Carington, an alien ambassador named Elvis (yes, really), the President of the United States, her co-workers and herself from an alien space ship. She then goes on to save the universe from an evil alien empire.

Perfect Dark Zero (2005) - Jonathan Steinberg
It has been too long since I played PD Zero (the story mode of which wasn't very memorable to me) to remember the specifics, so I'll simply link to a guide explaining the mission.
Perfect Dark Zero Guide - Outpost Rescue

Pocahontas (1996) - John Smith
Similar to the movie, the last level is Pocahontas racing against the clock to rescue John Smith from being killed.

Remember Me (2013) - Bad Request
Mission 6 starts out with Nilin attempting to rescue fellow memory hunter Bad Request, her biggest fan who helped her earlier in the game.

Particularly odd this example doesn't warrant a mention because of Anita's "review" of her playthrough of the game on Twitter several weeks before the episode supposed to feature dudes in distress launched. Didn't she remember the very emotional last levels?

Secret Files: Tunguska (2008)
After the disappearance of her father, finding his office ransacked and with the police reluctant to jump into action, Nina Kalenkov sets off to find his whereabouts herself.

Tomb Raider Legend (2006) - Zip & Alister Fletcher
While searching for the tomb of King Arthur, Lara overhears through her headset her mission control being ambushed by Rutland's men. Lara has to fight her way back out of the tomb in order to save them.

Tomb Raider (2013) - Crew of the Endurance
While the endgame focuses on saving Samantha Nishimura, throughout the game you have to rescue and protect the other surviving members of the Endurance expedition, several of whom are male, parental figures and a love interest. (It also says something for male disposibility that no white male survives the game)

Sources

- http://tropesversuswomen.tumblr.com/

- http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/03/damsel-in-distress-part-1/
- http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/05/damsel-in-distress-part-2-tropes-vs-women/
- http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/08/damsel-in-distress-part-3-tropes-vs-women/

- http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/23/5640678/playing-with-privilege-the-invisible-benefits-of-gaming-while-male
- http://anita.sarkeesian.usesthis.com/
http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/spelunky-and-sexims-1.pdf

Smash Boards: SSB4 Poll

Peter Marin, Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare--Jack Becomes Homeless

FemFreq's Use Of Fanart

Well here we are again. This morning I discovered another interesting revelation regarding Tropes vs. Women when an artist became aware of the project, and discovered she had contributed to it without realizing it.

UPDATE: I'll try to link to Tammy/Cowkitty's blogposts as this develops, which will be down below. In short so far there has been a small exchange between Tammy and Feminist Frequency, hopefully they'll work things out and as such I have nothing more to contribute to this topic. Now a few weeks later, Anita has apologized (although not without once again trying to paint her detractors in the worst light possible. Apparently it's our fault that Anita didn't do the right thing earlier) and done the right thing by removing the artwork.

FemFreq Use Of Fanart

So this promotional image is fairly familiar by now, right? It's the banner used during the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games campaign. We've got female characters from mostly promotional material from several different video game franchises lined up to show what the project is about.

Except it turns out the image of Princess Daphne from Dragon's Lair is not imagery from the game itself or promotional material for the game, but fanart created by Cowkitty in 2009 and used without permission for a commercial project. (Original image below in the sources section)

But let's not be too hasty. For all we know Cowkitty herself might have referenced from a piece of promotional material or a scene from the game, so to be entirely sure let's do an overlay to see how similar these two images are.

That's an exact match. So not only are your YouTube Let's Plays unsafe, there will also be no hesitation if you are an artist and you have an image Sarkeesian would like to use. Our gaming ambassador, everyone!

(NOTE: the following is not legal advice. It is based on a basic understanding between IP holder and the fan community)

You might be wondering: "But it's a fanart based on a copyrighted character. The original artist doesn't own the rights to the character anyway. How is this different from any of the other characters featured in the promo image?"

That doesn't take away the work put into crafting the image and the original touches unique to the artist. Copyright law might be a gray area when it concerns fanart, but there is more to it than just who the character belongs to. As such the artist still has rights when creating an image because it's their image. Those rights don't include someone else having the permission to take the work you put online to be used in a commercial project with the artist's watermark removed (it's also simply nice to ask before you take it from Google without sourcing). 

There's also still the issue that this was a paid project. The Tropes vs Women Kickstarter had $6,000 as an original goal, $158,922 as it's ultimate budget and apparently she couldn't even be bothered to ask anyone's permission regarding the content she stole.

How long until people finally hold her accountable for these things? This isn't about trying to undermine her arguments, this is about basic things regarding her questionable ethics and practices. Everyone makes mistakes, but please at least own up to them instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. The silence regarding all of these issues is more damning than the actual controversies.

Sources

Kickstarter: Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Cowkitty
Princess Daphne Artwork (May 06, 2009)
How do I deal with my artwork being stolen? (March 05, 2014)
Twitter (March 05, 2014)
You Stole My Artwork: An Open Letter to Anita Sarkeesian (March 07, 2014)
(Update & official response) You Stole My Art: An Open Letter to Anita Sarkeesian (March 07, 2014)
(Update #3) You Stole My Artwork: An Open Letter to Anita Serkeesian - RESOLVED (March 17, 2014)

On Sonic Boom

So because I'm not very fond of gaming journalism I apparently managed to miss all the teasers about the new Sonic the Hedgehog related animated series and its prequel game Sonic Boom until the teaser trailer and character reveals popped up yesterday on social media. So let's have a quick look.

On Sonic Boom
Quick Thoughts on the Redesign.

Okay, why the bandages everywhere? Are their shoes in danger of getting wounded? What does Sonic need with a scarf? Why is Knuckles a steroid giant now?

Apparently they decided to make this separate from the main franchise, so even if it ultimately isn't very good, at least we'll still have the questionable quality of mainstream Sonic games rather than a complete departure from previous entries in the series (I'm looking at you, Tomb Raider). Known hells are better than uncertain heavens, right?

I was a big Sonic fan when I was a child and I still have a certain fondness for the series, but I also maintain a certain lack of expectations since we've been burned so many times since the Mega Drive days. Overall it doesn't look bad though. The setting looks inspired by classic Sonic the Hedgehog games. Amy and Tails look nice. Sonic looks okay in the trailers (looks like a bit of a conehead with spikes in the concept art). Only Knuckles is way too oversized for my taste. I'm also glad to see Amy bumped up to a more dignified position in the main team now and she has a lot of potential because of it, although we'll have to wait and see if she'll manage to live up to it.

Sonic Generations (2011)

Aside from a few annoying tendencies and a couple of games handling her badly, I always liked Amy Rose as a character. The only thing I really have a problem with in current Amy as a concept is that she rarely ever got the chance to stretch her legs beyond her obsession with Sonic. I hope they at least tone down that aspect of her personality.

Anyway, here's the reveal trailer for the video game.

What has me curious is a quick shot between 0:36 and 0:38. Screencapped below for your convenience.

All of our heroes fall through the floor of some kind of ruins. The guys fall flat on their faces (in Sonic's case literally), the girl lands on her feet and has a certain "look what a badass I am" on her face. Now that could just be the manifestation of Amy's new-found agility, which is awesome. However based on previous experiences I fear this might be the sign of a female character who has a chip on her shoulder about being a female in a group of male characters, which is when it gets annoying. After all, the goal is to put the girl on equal terms with the guys, not highlighting the difference by making it an obviously gendered issue.

In an interview with Polygon(1), Big Red Button team leader Bob Rafei revealed that Amy's redesign and inclusion was to make her a more capable character in her own right to make her more interesting for female audiences, and not just as a character designed by a bunch of men. That's of course a noble endeavor but historically that approach usually misses the point. After all, Sonic the Hedgehog has been a capable character in his franchise for 23 years and he's lying there with his face firmly planted in the ground.
Does moving Amy out of Sonic's shadow mean constantly having to show him up? Because that usually translates into an overall not very interesting character who has to do with token gestures of "capability" while the others still do all the meaningful work in the story. A truly badass character can afford to fall on their face occasionally because they don't need such token gestures of "empowerment". They simply are such because of their nature.

A real badass can get tossed around a bit.

So please, have Amy Rose be a badass on her own terms and not as a token portrayal for the sake of gender politics. She has had to wait long enough for a day in the spotlight.

Sources

(Images)
http://blogs.sega.com/2014/02/06/sega-launches-new-franchise-strategy-for-sonic-the-hedgehog-with-sonic-boom/?0=1
- Sonic Generations
- Avatar: The Last Airbender

1. http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/6/5387184/why-sega-handed-sonic-over-to-western-studios-and-gave-him-a-scarf

Player Character Customization

Having never played any of the Saints Row games before, I decided to check out the fourth installment last weekend when it was freely available on Steam. Having hours go by as if they were mere minutes I decided  a one weekend access wasn't enough for me and I bought the franchise pack. While playing I had some thoughts on a subject I would have liked to delve into earlier.

Also I would have talked about how much I enjoyed Remember Me but The Males of Games has me covered on that one and all I would have left to add would be spoilers on how much I enjoyed the story.  

What I'll be talking about here won't be how awesome I think Saints Row is, but about how I think it's a masterclass in customization which other game developers could take notes from and my thoughts on how customization relates to sexism. 

Player Character Customization

In Which I Fawn Over Saints Row & Defend Boobs

On Player Customization

One of the main reasons why I thought buying Saints Row The Third after instantly loving Saints Row IV was a no brainer was when I learned the customization menu was, with only minor differences, the same thing. Meaning I could play as exactly the same character I had grown attached to over those first few hours. Not only does playing as a character you designed yourself increase how much fun it is to play said character, it could also make the player overlook flaws that might otherwise be a deal breaker (or in my case buy the game without knowing anything else about it at all).

Also the fact that I didn't have to pick a name means I didn't spend the first 3 hours of the game thinking of one.

My version of the Boss / the President

What is especially praiseworthy in the customization is that you not only get to pick the Boss' race or gender, but also the Boss' personality (which is essentially extra options which allows for different voice actors). This means that different personalities will react differently to certain situations. This in itself massively lengthens replayability just to see all of the different Boss' reactions.

I would have liked to see something like that implemented in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I thought it was very grating that we could pick as our character model practically every male character from the Star Wars universe, but somehow even 1 female skin would break immersion (likely because the voice actor was male). If you went out of the way to make all those extra models, why not go the extra mile and make the NPC dialogue more gender neutral and record a female voice actor as an option?

Heck, with games involving romance you'd have a lesbian couple for extra progressive points (or homosexual when we get there).

Small selection of available suits and outfits

A few months back we had people outrage over how Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have a female protagonist. While I think those outrages are often hyperbolic and unnecessary, the fact that GTA V doesn't have a female protagonists is a big reason why I'm currently not interested in getting the game (not that I hold it against the game, it just lacks one of my preferences). The last GTA game I played was San Andreas (and currently still am playing now that I own it on Steam), but I don't see how the stories of the GTA III games would be in any way harmed if they gave more options of playing a more customized character.

A side effect of having the same game for both genders also means we accidentally stumble on the philosophy writers/directors such as James Cameron have picked up, in which for a good female character you simply write a male character and change the pronouns (you know, because women happen to also be human).
A certain colorful character would probably label this problematic as "a man with boobs" even though she just got done criticizing gender specific signifiers but whatever, let's not bring unreasonable people into this when we don't have to.

On Sexism and Boob Backlash

Saints Row IV is one of the few recent major game releases that, to my knowledge, has avoided the often ridiculous outrage from the now infamous social justice crowd. As such I'm not sure it's a wise move on my part to use it as an example, but here we go.

Here's a comparison of a female Boss with a default body type (0% in skinny, fat and strength), with the sex appeal slider at different intervals (the slider also exists for the male Boss and it controls the size of his bulge).

Now yes, in the last image the Boss' breasts are hilariously oversized and they jiggle around in a way that would make Dead or Alive Xtreme blush (not in the least bit because DOAX' jiggle physics have yet to meet our friend gravity and it actually looks okay here). A lot of the people complaining about sexism in video games would undoubtedly classify that image as sexist, even with other options available.
No, I haven't heard their specific opinions on Saints Row, but I think it is a reasonable assumption they would make that argument given their concern about what's up on the walls in your private bedroom in "how to be an ally to women" lists, the uproar about optional bikini packs or the fact that they all know well enough what Dead or Alive is about but still can't figure out they don't have to buy those games.

My thoughts? If you object to it being in the game at all or to people wanting to play as that kind of character, you aren't being progressive, you are being a bully and you are shaming people for their sexuality. I will back you completely for the inclusion of things such as sliders to reduce breast sizes, certain options that reduce content which might make you uncomfortable or entire games featuring what you want, but I cannot possibly back you just because some people like what you don't. Your offense does not take away their right to enjoy it no matter how many statistics you think you can cough up.

Fact: some people like sexualized content. If they didn't, all those nude patches and half the content over at nexusmods wouldn't exist.

You don't? That's fine. If there isn't right now, there should definitely be enough stuff you can enjoy. However you can campaign for it without shaming other people for what they like. It's not entitlement to women's bodies, they aren't even women's bodies, they are sprites and polygons on a screen. By definition the thing objectified is an object and not a person. Forcing that set of polygons into a highly sexual outfit is just as much forced on it as it is to put them in absolutely any other situation.

The player controlling that set of polygons however is a real person with feelings, opinions and preferences. I do not see any road that leads to meaningful progress that excludes the feelings, opinions and preferences of a large part of the population in favor of those of fictional characters. Excluding this portion just because you think they've had majority input for long enough isn't progress, it's being terrible from a different angle.
This is why I think customization is an essential key to solving our current social justice crisis in a more meaningful way than the random outbursts against things we don't like we've been having so far. Customization  is one of the advantages video games bring to the table over other forms of media and it gives everyone the option of creating who they want to play as, just so long as the different sides are willing to put up with the mere options being in the game. Censorship and social shaming for stuff you don't personally like just makes you into a bully.

Oh look, I found the bondage shop!

And now I'm going to continue taking over the city / destroy the alien empire.

The Sassette Principle

Because The Smurfette Principle is not very appreciative of this little tomboy gal.

Update (28/10/2015): extended article on this subject here.

A Diverse Cast of Characters

On Tumblr there's a couple of images going around showcasing video game mascots from the late 80's to now, and how apparently every single one of modern gaming mascots is a 20-35 year old white dude with short hair, a stubble and a scowl with the exception of Chell from Portal 6 years ago. So I'm going to take the time to do some ranting of my own.

A Diverse Cast of Characters
A Rant to an Invisible Fanbase

Okay, I don't disagree with diversification in gaming but the people arguing in favor of it really need to clean up their act. The "We Can Do Better Than This" on one of the images itself is fairly innocuous, but a couple of blogs spreading the images complain about there only being 1 female character and have the line "THIS IS NOT OKAY" underneath them. Yes, I want more diversity in video game protagonists too, but the apparent lack of diversity doesn't annoy me nearly as much as its opposition pretending we have to start from scratch in fixing it.

So ... presenting a list of 8 characters as representative of the last 10 years of video game "mascots". Right. Five of which I managed to avoid because they are from games I haven't even played.  

Okay, elephant in the room number one: none of these previous characters have gone away. Only Raziel is really starting to drop into obscurity. A lot of the others even had major releases in the last year. You can't really mourn women being archaeologists when you could last be one in March of this year. Or how about that Nintendo crossover fighter coming up that features literally half of the characters from before the early 2000's?

Cole MacGrath, Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix and Chell could arguably be considered mascots, but I think for the BioShock franchise the Big Daddy has more of a right to call himself a mascot (but he's evidently too interesting for this list). I had to look up what the guy from The Last of Us' name is, I guess marketing has put too much emphasis on the female character Ellie. As for Soap MacTavish ... really? He might be the main protagonist of the 3 Modern Warfare games but while actually playing the first Modern Warfare (in which he's actually the main player protagonist), he might have as well been a bar of soap for how much I actually learned about him. I hardly call that mascot material.

Like I often said in previous posts, this is once again people giving free advertising to the things they don't like to see and pretending the good things don't exist, just so they can give more weight to their complaints. You can just as easily fill up those 8 slots with 8 athletes from the covers of sports games released this year alone and say it is not okay that all these jocks are filling up gaming protagonists. That's not even a stretch considering the average FIFA game sells at least thrice as many copies as The Last of Us did.


The Supposed Market

Mass Effect was indeed marketed with that particular representation of Commander Shepard, but the problem there is that we are talking about a game that allows for character customization. The female version of Commander Shepard turned out to be so popular that for Mass Effect 3, she was also put in the spotlight. So on one hand I'd grant Shepard mascot status, on the other I have reservations about calling a character a mascot if he doesn't necessarily appear in the game at all. Especially since this list seems to already mix up mascot with player protagonist.

Inclusion of Female Commander Shepard in Marketing

The effect female Shepard's popularity had in the attitude shift in marketing is also emblematic of what happens when enough people actually do speak up. I said it before and I'll continue to hammer it in. The people publishing these things want to make a profit above all else, they are perfectly willing to change their strategy if it means more money in the bank. You aren't going to change them by attempting to pull the ground beneath them. You have to highlight what you do like and ask for more of that.

We have a lot of people complaining about what they don't like, but these same people vanish in smoke when they actually get what they claim to want. Are you out there and do you actually want these things or are you just here to complain about sexism? The Internet exploded when it was revealed publishers didn't want to publish Remember Me because a female protagonist wouldn't sell (Link broken). Instead of all the blogs chewing these publishers up, a more convincing counterargument would be the game's massive success.

Except that's not exactly what happened.

Remember Me vs. Duke Nukem Forever

No, I don't consider it a fair comparison between Remember Me and Duke Nukem Forever. I just want to show Remember Me couldn't even scratch at the sales of a widely hated game. This is hardly a rare occurrence. Games with a female protagonist do very often sell worse than games with a male protagonist.

The Castlevania games on DS shows the same strange phenomenon quite clearly to a certain degree. These games are all similarly rated and fairly similar in gameplay style (so I won't entirely rule out gamer fatigue), nevertheless its sales numbers are strangely ordered by player character. Solo male protagonist at the top, both male and female protagonist in the middle with only a slight drop in sales, and a larger drop with a solo female protagonist. This is especially strange, when at the time of release, Order of Ecclesia was widely praised for breathing new life into the franchise. They even cross-promoted the game by having main character Shanoa as a roster fighter in the Wii game Castlevania Judgment.

Sure, every time you mention things like this it will be pointed out that the lack in sales have to do with a lack of marketing budget or the game being released at the wrong time. However it also showcases how this huge supposed untapped market really isn't there, or at least not visibly so. After all, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic didn't become a powerhouse of a franchise among adult males because Hasbro started marketing to them. They simply showed up when a few people discovered it was actually pretty good and its popularity spread through word of mouth.
One of the few times I can remember when this happened anywhere recently in the gaming community with a female protagonist is with Bayonetta, after it was sold at a reduced price and not profitable enough anymore to be picked up for a sequel until Nintendo decided to bite.

Yes, there is the occasional game that really manages to do decently out of the gate like Portal, Mirror's Edge (you know, that low-hanging fruit a certain colorful character keeps parading as the best games ever) and Tomb Raider, but exceptions aside the problem is not just a one-way street solely to blame on marketing or developers not trying. For there to be effective marketing, there needs to be a visible market.

And I again want to reiterate: I also want more variety in the mainstream gaming community. I also think the quality of white male characters has dropped to exceedingly bland. I love strange ideas for player characters. I love female player characters. I just tire of seeing lots of people complaining while I seem to be the only one walking to the store to actually pick up these games. It's the annoying cycle of people yelling at me because I'm supposedly on the wrong side of the fence while I'm actually investing my money on the things they claim to want while I'm the one watching it all fail. Boy, that was one hell of a sentence.

Ignoring the Indie Market

Unless there's something to chastise the indie scene for, it often goes largely unnoticed when it comes to positive examples. No, we'd rather directly force the big budget triple A developers on top to instantly drop everything they are doing and cater to our sensibilities. The problem with doing it like this is that we are tearing down existing infrastructures for what is essentially a gamble on their part. 

So with my suggestion above to highlight the things you like, how about you also help cultivate the little guy? After all, a triple A developer doesn't magically fall from the sky.

This ...

... also started out like this.

So instead of complaining that Nintendo isn't drastically altering its formula right away to accommodate a solo playable Princess Zelda, is it too much to ask to put some of that effort into showing some support for an existing game inspired by The Legend of Zelda that already has a female protagonist?

Ittle Dew (2013)

I mean, why are we approaching these issues as if we absolutely need to redistribute a very finite amount of resources? Is it honestly that impossible for several different groups and fanbases to coexist together that we must tear down what other people enjoy instead of building stuff of our own? Diversity isn't just a tool to bludgeon other people with. Diversity includes the norm and things you don't like.

Now in a few hours Contrast will be officially released. I got my pre-order waiting to unlock. So how about we stop complaining and finally put our money where our mouths are?

Contrast (2013)

While you're at it, go check out Blood of the Werewolf. It's not normal I can easily break into top 10 on leaderboards.