Media Cultures

GAME AND GENDER IDENTITY

13N

[THROUGH THE LENS OF CREATE-A-CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION IN VIDEO GAMES]

USUALLY, GENDER SELECTION IS ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS THAT YOU ENCOUNTER WHEN DEVELOPING A CHARACTER IN A VIDEO GAME WITH CREATE-A-CHARACTER FEATURES.

From step 1, as a non-binary queer person, I am challenged by creating a character that truly reflects my identity. There are big limitations to character customization in video games. The kinds of representations that exist in a video game are completely in the hands of the video game creator – It is up to the video game companies to choose what customization options they provide for people.

Even in games where you are making a character that may not be an exact replica of oneself, there are still harmful choices that are made and coded into the game that perpetuate stereotypes and contribute to negative portrayal of gender identity.

Let’s look at some of the good and bad video game character customization features I’ve encountered when gaming.

examples of typical create-a-character problems and limitations:

Hyper-sexualized and ultra-feminization of female character bases in Skyrim and Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hyper-masculine male character bases with unrealistic body standards in Skyrim and Divinity: Original Sin 2

Examples of Inclusive create-a-character features:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons uses style as an identifying word when it comes to the binary, so people are left to fill in the blanks of what that means to them personally. As well, all clothing sorted together, instead of separated by masculine or feminine. The clothing options all being collected together allows me to think more about what fun things I want to wear, rather than how masculine/feminine I am presenting.
The Sims 4 has custom pronoun options, as seen in the top left corner of the character customization screen.

Genre impacting character customization

Different genres and styles of video games seem to have more active problematic behaviours than others…

  • Is this because the game has distributed their resources to put more care into other elements of gameplay?
  • Is this because they have a different target audience and demographic? 

More questions to ponder….

  • Is gender something that you think about when playing video games?
  • Do you care if a video game that you’re playing lacks your gender representation in playable characters? Does it depend on the genre of game?
  • How has limited gender representation in a video game impacted your gameplay experience? Ex. You can only play as a male protagonist
  • Do you have examples of games that exist to celebrate gender identity? *Not exclusive to video games
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