An article of mine went up a few days ago over at Slashdot, and a friend, who has been browsing the reader comments, told me about one gamer who was disappointed that, despite my normal gender and sexuality bent, this piece had “nothing to do” with either. Normally, I don’t visit the forums for my own pieces. When I first started out, I read them like books. But, as anyone who’s been in one lately can understand, it’s a pretty unsettling experience, especially when it’s you and your ideas they’re talking about. However, this comment was striking, and I’d like to address it.
First off, in my opinion, gender and sexuality always have “something to do with it.” We are innately sexual beings, and innately gendered beings (even those of us who fall outside of traditional definitions of gender). Therefore all of our actions, our perceptions, our creations are somehow influenced by gender and sexuality.
Video game aesthetics are no exception. The folks at Slashdot suggested their audience might not be so receptive of a gender-issues piece, which is why the topic is barely mentioned in “Realism vs. Style.” But the debate over realistic versus stylized graphics is one that’s often split by gender lines. Women tend to be more attracted to stylization, innovation, and, where applicable, “cuteness.” Men, on the other hand, seem to be more concerned with realistic rendering, perfection of old gameplay, and general game “muscle.” Of course, these observations are overgeneralized, but they often hold true. It’s also important to remember that they’re culturally specific. In Japan, games like Halo 2 (an FPS with realistic graphics) is met with little interest, whereas “weird”, stylized games like Katamari Damacy, Rez and DDR are sensational hits.
Why do certain types of people - specifically men and women - look for different things in a game? The question, ultimately an unsolvable one, goes back to nature vs. nurture. Do women have a different inborn sense of aesthetics than men? Perhaps more likely it’s a result of our culture, which accepts “manly” men as only those invested in the real, the powerful - and simultaneously frees women from the burden on realism, allowing them seek out and appreciate that which goes beyond reality: art.
September 9th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
My personal observation is that gender has less of an impact on appreciation for a games visuals than other factors. I’ve had long discussions with people over why World of Warcraft’s or EverQuest 2’s graphics “rock” or “suck”, and the division has not been along gender lines at all. The two games take radically different approaches to rendering a somewhat similar fantasy world, one “realistic”, the other “impressionist”. I like EQ2, as does my wife: two men I know think I’m some sort of brainless savage because I don’t appreciate the subtle perfection of World of Warcraft’s imagery.
I’ve likewise had discussions with people entirely outside of gaming with regards to pieces of tangible art- paintings and sculpture. Some people, in my experience not bound by gender, like abstract works, others like realism. Again, I haven’t noticed a gender bias: if anything, the geometric and abstract works seem to attract men more than women.
My favorite artists apply rules of “reality” to fantastic subjects. They build realistic creatures clothed in biologically plausable musculatures and flesh. When I look at a hyper-deformed character, the first thing that occurs to me is: where in that cranium with the four inch diameter eyes is there room for a brain?
But…to each their own. I just don’t think gender has much to do with appreciation for “art”, or lack thereof.
September 10th, 2005 at 11:06 am
While I think that may be true in the art world, in video games (I think) there’s definitely still an aesthetic division by gender. Of course, it won’t be same for everyone, or every game. But if you think of “girl” games (by that I mean games girl tend to play, not dress-up-Barbie titles), they usually rely more on stylization than realism. It might also help to think about the word “gay”, which a lot of gamers apply to stylized, “cartoony” games like Wind Waker. This, for male forum-goers, has a major connotation of effeminicy. Perhaps the clarification should be made (and thanks for point it out!) that there’s a difference between what men and women actually want in a game (gender and aesthetics), and which elements in a game are associated with the masculine and feminine (aesthetics of gender). Sometimes it’s hard to separate the cultural ideology and the members of the culture themselves. I think this is just one of those cases.
September 10th, 2005 at 11:32 am
One thing occurs to me…the label “gay” or any other extreme label for something a person doesn’t like…that, to me, is a sign of immaturity.
It seems to me that some people, people I’d generally describe as “immature”, have a hard time separating statements of opinion from fact, and moreso separating the opinion from the individual stating the opinion. Such people want to insult someone who has a different opinion than they do, so that those people are “outside”, whereas the people who share their particular opinion are “inside”. Further, I think that some people never even actually form an opinion of their own- they just parrot the extremist statements of their peers so that they can belong.
So…when someone says that graphics are “gay”, I think they are usually doing so to make themselves one of the “insiders”, often times without even forming a real opinion of their own. I doubt that they really even have given much thought to the sexual connotations of the word “gay”: its just an insult. In and of itself, that’s kind of sad.
September 11th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
Of course it’s totally a matter of opinion, but I’d have to disagree with you when you say that the word “gay”, as an insult, lacks any other connotations. I think you’re right that, when people use it (and those people definitely are immature :-)) they don’t give any thought to its implications, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any. Culturally, historically, it means something - and that meaning is inescapable (and revealing) every time you use a word, whether or not you do it thoughtlessly.
Maybe it’s easier to look at it like this: Why has the word “gay” come to be used in this way? You suggest it’s to make people feel like outsiders, and I agree. But take that one step further: what about “gayness” makes you an outsider, and, in turn, what things are labelled as gay? The answer to both is effiminacy (as we perceive it). So even if you use the word “gay” without reasoning it through, the implications of alienation through gender/sexuality are still present. Just a thought…
September 11th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
Good point, Bonnie…but as you’ll note, I didn’t say the word didn’t have connotations. Rather, I said that the people using it probably haven’t thought those connotations through- their purpose is just to insult, and “thinking” is not something they are liable to do much of.
I recall having a lengthy (and utterly pointless) argument years ago while playing an FPS. Some fellow called my sniping kills “gay”. I pointed out that the toughest military specialists in the world would call anyone who jumped in toe to toe a fricking moron if they could instead blow the enemy’s head off from behind cover. And I proposed putting the complainer in a room with half a dozen of said highly trained, combat hardened military specialists so that he could render his opinion on the effeminate nature of their recommended tactics.
He called me gay…
September 12th, 2005 at 7:37 am
A worthy come back, to be sure :-). All in all, it’s a sticky situation, since the word “gay” is so weighted, but used so thoughtlessly. Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by people who don’t use it insultingly (half the people I know are gay, so it would just be absurd) that I’m particularly sensative to the use of it in the gaming community - which is, more or less, my only daily window into the terminology of the average American Joe. Anyways, Kelly, thanks for the really interesting back and forth!
September 12th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
While I do tend to agree the division is along gender lines, as your article points out, I’d have to feel that said division is more inherent to American/European culture than to gender itself.
As you state, games such as DDR and Katamari, both of which would not be considered realistic in graphics terms, have a higher rate over success overseas than domestically. (Well, replace DDR with Bemani; games such as Pop’n music took off there to a much greater degree).
The trend could be observed in game development itself, if a look at consoles versus PCs is taken. The majority of major console games are made in Japan; the majority of major PC games are made in the US. Typically, the huge graphics revisions, such as cell shading, first appear in console games, whereas the frontiers of realism are constantly pushed on the PC.
Is gender a part of it? In the US, certainly; however, it seems that perhaps it’s much more of a culture-gender union rather than gender alone.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
I definitely agree with you. Certain elements of gender, some would argue, are innate. But most of what we associate with femininity/masculinity are really cultural creations. In Japan, for example, the “cuteness” which we consider a female trait is considered attractive equally in both men and women. As for other societies… who knows? Japan and America are the two major game-consuming countries, so they get the most attention, but “mainstream” games are being played all over the world, by people with lots of different ideas about the aesthetics of gender.
It’s true about the PC/console split you mentioned - though, it’s interesting to note how Microsoft is really messing with that dynamic now. They’ve stepped into the Japanese market and essentially created a console for the American realist (a trend I can’t say I’m too fond of in my games or in my literature :-)). Incidently, the system attracts, in my experience, a higher ratio of males than any other, and has, in the past, done downright awfully in Japan.
September 13th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Which would, I have to imagine, corroborate the idea of it being more cultural than chromosomal; so, in that sense, it would feel that preferences are tied to a type of identity which itself is highly mutable.
I can’t say I’m fond of the Xbox either; my feeling in games is that stuff that’s truly new is usually the most fun, although there is something to also be said for refreshing the old formulas, a trend perhaps best exemplified in the Final Fantasy series, and in console RPGs in general.
September 14th, 2005 at 9:46 am
Highly multable identity - bingo! Now, if only the rest of the world would keep that in mind, we’d all be quite a bit more tolerant. “Look, there’s a bloke in a dress!” “It’s okay mate: ‘highly mutable identity’, remember?” “Oh, okay. Tea?” Yes sir, that would be grand.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
homeowners insurance claims adjuster…
reevaluation innately aphonic …