Pixelnauts.net

The final rule states that this (elusive) game, should exist without drawing attention to these facts and herein is the trick. Developing a progressive game that fulfills these two requirements intrinsically makes it immediately more accessible to female gamers (and by proxy, opens the door to potential female developers and creators). But asking publishers to avoid advertising it as such is a difficult thing to ask indeed. After all, conventional wisdom would suggest that if a developer creates a game that is meant to at least partially cater to potential female gamers, the publisher should get the word out and allow these potential customers to know that a game is available precisely for them. However! -- giving into this temptation takes away from the merits of the product itself by establishing it as simply a gimmick or a trial balloon, thus a product that will inevitably disappoint.

This may seem an impossible task but it isn't without precedent. Back in 2007, Valve released the first-person puzzle platformer, Portal. The game stars only two characters, you, a taciturn female test subject, pitted against the malevolent super computer, GLaDOS (sure it's a computer, but its programmed as female so I'm counting it). I would be willing to bet that ninety-nine out of one hundred game developers, had they created Portal, would have opted to make the protagonist male. There really is no reason to choose one over the other, either sex would work, but that Valve choose to have the 'hero' be female (and a rather plain looking one at that) and that they did so without advertising themselves as 'progressive', is a testament to their company as a whole. This is exactly the kind of thinking that is only positive for the industry. A game, lauded as one of the best of '07, stars a normal proportioned, intelligent woman, and doesn't brag about itself. It just presents itself for what it is -- a very good game.

Now as 'Bechdel's Rule' revealed, television and film are in no way guiltless when it comes to reinforcing negative gender roles, and I in no way mean to imply that their model is something to which the video game industry should aspire. Indeed there is much that could be said about how those industries could improve with regards to equality. But if appealing to the many publishers' collective conscious' about the subtle and pernicious negatives that they continue to reinforce through gaming is insufficient at changing this negative trend, then I will instead appeal to their wallets. To illustrate my point, let's bring in a third media industry -- one that Bechdel knows well: Comics.

Comic books, though a massive and successful field, still remains on the cuff of the mainstream. Despite the fact that they've been around for nearly one hundred years, they've had an incredibly difficult time convincing our society that they are a legitimate and important creative outlet. The reasons for this are probably manifold, but suffice it to say that the main comic audience (at least in the eyes of the mainstream) remains largely 12-18 year old boys.

If video games wish to branch out beyond the stigma that continues to plague comics, it must attract the brightest creative minds seeking to find an outlet for their vision - whatever it may be. If this is going to happen, it is imperative that the industry take the first step and shed the ridiculous female stereotypes that it continues to reinforce. Growth and the perceptions of legitimacy that come from that growth are only possible if the industry ceases the insulting and shallow female representations that it has for too long relied upon.

It's time for developers and publishers to stop putting all of their focus on the pubescent boy and realize that it is a vast, intelligent, and diverse world out there. Let's hope that they begin to make the games that adequately reflect this truth; I assure you, once they do, they'll find out that there's more money in video games than they ever dreamed.