The evolution of female roles in video games.

[NeoZeedeater]

Thanks to Brisco Bold for the topic.


The roles of female characters in video games have changed quite a bit over time.

When the video game industry was emerging in the early 1970s, technological limitations had basically rendered games genderless, at least in appearance. Ball and paddle games like Pong didn't have realistic looking people and space ship games didn't have visible people. I'm sure it was assumed the characters of the games were male. The arcade cabinets of games sometimes had art showing male sports players. Heading further into the '70s, sports games advanced to to point where characters were recognizably male.

1981 marked a very important moment for female roles in gaming, the first playable female character. Namco's Pac-Man was a huge hit in the arcades. When a couple guys approached Bally's Midway, the North American distributor of Pac-Man, with a modification board for the game, Ms. Pac-Man was born. While the character wasn't human, it was undoubtedly female. The game was a huge success and it also showed that having a female lead character attracts more female gamers.



Despite the female gamers that Ms. Pac-Man attracted, the video game industry was already firmly established as male-dominated. It was assumed that male gamers wanted to play as male characters. Nintendo's Donkey Kong in 1981 popularized the "damsel in distress" role for female characters in games. It wasn't the first game with this theme though; Atari's 1978 VCS game Superman had done it earlier.



That's not to say that playable female characters were non-existent back then. In Wizard Video's Halloween(based on the movie) and Apollo's Wabbit for the Atari 2600 you controlled female characters.




As expected from a male-dominated dominated industry, it was only a matter of time before female sexual attractiveness was used as a selling point for games. Adult video games first appeared in the early '80s. Sierra released a text adventure for the Apple II called Softporn Adventure and Mystique had those infamous adult games for the 2600 like Custer's Revenge and Beat 'em and Eat 'em. Koei released Night Life for the PC88 in 1982, probably the first hentai adventure game in Japan.


Strip Poker(Artworx, C64, 1983)


Adult video games have existed ever since then but various factors have kept them from being mainstream. Console manufacturers have had control over content from the NES onwards and have rarely allowed nudity in games, making the vast majority of these types of games on PC and arcade formats instead. Adult video games are an example of female gaming roles that have changed very little in the past two decades. Nudity in games is still mostly in the same puzzle/poker/mahjong/adventure genres it was in the '80s.

Anyway, like I was saying, there weren't many games with female lead characters in the early '80s and this trend mostly continued in the 8-bit(NES/SMS) era. Video games were getting more complex and developers were often providing background stories as context for the games. The "save the princess/your girlfriend" theme was very common in this era, especially among popular Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.

Not every game featured women in submissive roles in the mid-late '80s. While there weren't that many games with female lead characters, games with several selectable characters often had at least one female character to choose from. Examples are: Atari's Gauntlet, Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. 2, and Sega's Quartet. Computer RPGs often had female characters you could choose to be in your party. Sometimes you chose if the main character was male or female.

For 8-bit console gaming, I consider Nintendo's Metroid(NES, 1986) and Sega's Phantasy Star(SMS, 1987 in Japan, 1988 in NA) to be the most powerful and impressive games featuring female lead characters.

Nintendo was well aware of the male dominance of the industry and their own games and they wanted to try something different. The sex of Metroid's Samus was meant to be a surprise. The character was covered in a suit disguising her appearance. Only at the end of the game was it revealed that she was female. Gamers definitely took notice. Before I even played the game, it was well known that the character was a girl. And I played Metroid right after it came out. News had traveled fast.


Phantasy Star was the first Japanese RPG released in the West and so it was a completely new genre experience for many people. Having a female lead character made it feel even more unique. Similar to what happened with Metroid, I recall many gamers making a big deal over Phantasy Star's Alis.


*Note - Phantasy Star wasn't the first J-RPG with a female lead character. KGD's computer hentai RPG Cosmic Soldier had done that in 1985. The game is virtually unknown in the West so it didn't impact many people.

The 16-bit era was very similar to the 8-bit era but there were some slight differences in female roles. "Damsel in distress" themed games were becoming far less common. There also seemed to be an increase of games with playable female characters.

I think part of this can be explained by the popularization of the fighting genre and its tendency to have a wide selection of playable characters. Unless I'm forgetting something, I don't think there was a single female character playable in a fighting game prior to Capcom's Street Fighter II in 1991. There was a female fighter in Konami's Yie Ar Kung Fu(1985) but she wasn't a playable character. Chun Li from SF2 started the trend of playable female fighting characters and the number of female characters in fighting games kept growing. Female fighters have become increasingly sexual since SF2, first with SNK's Mai "bouncy" Shiranui and then Tecmo's Dead or Alive girls.




What I consider the biggest turning point in the evolution of female roles in video games was the arrival of Core's Tomb Raider in 1996. The industry went nuts over this game and its character Lara Croft. The big breasted Brit became a phenomenon unlike anything before in gaming. She was a digital sex symbol, with books, toys, ugly memory cards and movies made about her. Video games were already on track to including more female lead characters but Tomb Raider proved that it could be a huge selling point for games and the number of female lead characters post-Tomb Raider has been enormous.


Oh, and TR is a great game, despite what the haters say.

So here we are today with a video game scene filled with tons of female lead characters, most of which are scantily clad and abnormally endowed. Nudity in video games is still mostly confined to niche computer and arcade games. Old habits and console censorship keep nudity out of mainstream gaming. The "damsel in distress" theme is virtually extinct, replaced with the "bad-ass chick with guns" theme.

That's my perspective on it. Maybe yours is different. What are your thoughts on the topic? Discuss.

Because I love posting game pics, here are a few screenshots of games I like with female lead characters:

Monster World IV(Westone, MD, 1994)


Heavy Metal: FAKK2(Ritual, PC, 2000)


Valis IV(Telenet, PCE CD, 1991)


The Longest Journey(Funcom, PC, 2000)


Devil Hunter YokoNCS, MD, 1991)


Alisia Dragoon(Game Arts, SG, 1992)
See Melf's great recent review - http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/s...ad.php?t=26087

VS. Ladies Golf(Nintendo, Arcade, 1984)


Jill of the Jungle(Epic, PC, 1992)


Twinkle Tale(Toyo, MD, 1992)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/pics5/twinkle.html

[b]M.U.S.H.A.[b](Compile, SG, 1990)


Psycho Soldier(SNK, Arcade, 1986)


Sega Ninja(Sega, Arcade, 1985)


Battle Mania 2(Vic Tokai, MD, 1993)
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/genes...mania%202.html

Drakan(Surreal, PC, 1999)


Time Gal(Taito, Arcade, 1985)


Burning Force(Namco, Arcade, 1989)


Pocky and Rocky(Natsume, SNES, 1993)


Tennis 2k2(Sega, DC, 2001)

[AaronChance]

I've played Psychic War. It was released in the US on PC without any hentai elements. Very cool game system how the various character got their psychic powers. Friend and I both beat the game. The only other thing I remember about it is it had some very strange copy protection involving a map that I had to copy since I was a punk kid who pirated games back then.

I'd also like to mention the Atelier series, which is the only RPG series I know of where the leads are always women (and different women as well, if you don't count the spinoff games).

[NeoZeedeater]

Actually, the Psychic War you played is the sequel. Broderbund released it in the West. I meant to say the name of the first game, Cosmic Soldier. I'll fix that.

[epmode]

this usually goes without saying, but this thread is awesome, neo.

[NeoZeedeater]

Thanks. I haven't played Beyond Good & Evil yet but it looks like a great(and respectable) female role.

[soundwave]

Dude. El Viento!!!

[dog$]

No mention of Centipede/Millipede at all? Who knew.

I took it upon myself to crack open a dear old friend, Next Generation of January 98 (#37, Volume 4) to see if there were any worthwhile tidbits reprinting or still relevant. The magazine title is "Girls Girls Girls" with the subtitle:
"The Lara Croft clones arrive."
"Is the rash of Lara imitators a signal of a new maturity in games or their inability to get past adolescence?"
I can't say I found anything specifically quote worthy per se, maybe their little sidebox called The Eastern Approach sums up the three page article best.

While Japanese game designers put scantily clad lasses in their games too (Capcom's Final Fight being an early example), they also reveal an obsession with schoolgirls. This phenomenon has reached epidemic proportions in the world of anime and has become a beat-'em-up institution. The females in Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha, Toshinden 3, and Fighting Vipers look barely a day over 15.
However, the obsession with female youth reached its nadir in Tekken 3. The game is set 19 years after Tekken 2 and all the male characters have aged accordingly. But what of Nina and Anna? The story behind the game explains that they were used in a cryogenic sleep experiment, to emerge 15 years later without aging. How very conveinent.

Other interesting aspects they bring up is the way females are used in video game advertising (much less in trade shows), and other examples of how female characters can change like Nikki did from Pandemonium! 1 to 2.

For a final kettle of fish we can always speculate upon what impact that our pal, the Bemani series and the ilk, have done specifically in regard to how female players interpret videogames. I'm not sure it has as much of a measurable effect as other people (both fans and critics) would lead to believe; from what I've personally seen, most females regard the games with about the same level of (un)enthusiasm as they do any other videogame, relatively.

... oh , and nobody's mentioned non-hentai date sims like Tokimeki or other games like Sakura Taisen as well. Specifically in games like ST I think it can be easy for females to positively identify with the majority of its characters.

[Shin Johnpv]

there's a fair amount of shooters with female leads

[NeoZeedeater]

No mention of Centipede/Millipede at all? Who knew.

I left out females as game developers from the topic. I also think that Ed Logg was more responsible for Centipede than Donna Bailey was. Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen deserve credit for their contributions to the adventure genre. And Rieko Kodama for Phantasy Star.

[LOL]

Roberta Williams did good with Rosella from King's Quest 4 and 7.