May the mysoginistic history of video games being related to the Japanese culture ? A lot of video games are Japanese, Nintendo played a huge part in the market, and I wonder if this culture could have affected the stereotypes of video games as a whole. I'm no expert of Japanese culture, but what I understood is that women are considered as second class citizens, highly sexualized and should put family before their career.
I'm not saying that American or European cultures are not mysoginistic, but I wonder if it could be related.
Anyway, here are some video games that I loved and recommend for begginers :)
- Zelda : Breath of the Wild
It's a RPG (Role Playing Game) where you play as Link, a boy who fight evil with a sword. Appart from the fighting part of the game, the landscapes are wonderful, and you could spend a lot of time just wondering around. There are also a lot of puzzles in the game to tease your brain.
Another RPG, much more mature and dark, is The Witcher III. It's still beautiful with such a scenario.
- Age Of Empires II
This is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) game where you build cities and armies to defeat your opponent. All of that under a historical scenario. There are a lot of games like this one with different environments : Age of Mythology (with old gods from all around the world), Warcraft III (fantasy), StarCarft (Science Fiction, this one is free).
There is also Polytopia on smartphone. It's free and kind of the same game.
- Pokemon
I'm sure you know this one. You capture and train monsters to become the best trainer and capture all of them. Collection, adventure, fight (but I would say not violent), friendship... It has everything.
And yes, Japan must have played a big part in the misogynist culture of video games. I mentioned Nintendo too briefly... I should have thought of that!
J’ai quelques suggestions à vous proposer. Ce sont tous des jeux qui m’ont beaucoup plu, qui sont légers (pas besoin d’avoir un ordinateur dernier cri) et courts (ils se terminent en quelques minutes ou quelques heures). Quand j’étais ado/jeune adulte, j’ai adoré jouer à des jeux qui demandent des dizaines d’heures pour en faire le tour, mais aujourd’hui je ne pourrais sans doute plus caser Skyrim dans ma vie de trentenaire.
« it's a game about high school memories, growth and being online late at night. » Je trouve que la description officielle du jeu le décrit bien, j’ai été très réceptif à la nostalgie qui s’en dégage. J’aime beaucoup les jeux de Cecile Richard de manière générale et l’émotion qui s’en dégage la plupart du temps, et celui-ci est mon préféré.
On incarne une jeune femme venant d’arriver dans une petite entreprise de pompes funèbres, et on prépare les corps, s’entretient brièvement avec les proches des défunts tout en se tenant au courant de la vie de l’entreprise et du monde des pompes funèbres en général. Paradoxalement il se dégage beaucoup de douceur de ce jeu, et je me souviens qu’avec ma sœur on s’était fait la remarque qu’on aimerait être accueilli comme l’héroïne si on arrivait dans une nouvelle entreprise, voire devenir le genre de personne capable d’accueillir les nouvelles recrues de cette façon.
On incarne une jeune femme en vacances sur une île, qui a pour but de faire une rando jusqu’au sommet. C’est aussi l’occasion de parler aux autres personnes sur l’île (un mécanisme nous oblige à nous intéresser un minimum à eux si on veut pouvoir aller jusqu’au sommet). C’est joli, le design des personnages rappelle celui d’Animal Crossing et les dialogues m’ont beaucoup plu, je les trouve fun :D
On incarne un jeune homme travaillant pour une app de livraison qui sonne à la porte d’un immeuble peuplé de créatures surnaturelles, et se retrouve à intervenir auprès de chacune d’elles. Comme dans A Short Hike, les dialogues et les situations m’ont fait rire et je trouve que les créateurs du jeu ont bien réussi à donner un côté très millennial au jeu.
Un très court jeu qui consiste à résoudre un puzzle : 3 personnes veulent dormir dans le même lit et on doit leur trouver la position qui va bien pour que personne ne donne de coup à personne (chat inclus) ni ne finisse par terre pendant la nuit. Ça fait partie des petits jeux indé où j’apprécie de me dire « nan mais quelqu’un a fait un jeu là dessus ? excellent il faut que je teste :D » Pet the pup at the party (https://grey2scale.itch.io/pet-the-pup) me fait rire pour la même raison : je n’y jouerais pas pendant des heures mais j’adore le fait que quelqu’un se soit dit « je vais créer un jeu sur le fait d’arriver à une fête où on ne connaît personne, d’entendre des aboiements et de vouloir soudain, absolument, aller caresser le chien »
I love your writing and reading your newsletter in general, but I have some mixed feelings with how this post is framed. While you're certainly correct in that there is a disparity regarding how many women and minorities are in game development and that many mainstream games have had a focus on violence and misogyny, I'm a little put off by the phrasing that gaming is an "all male world," as I think there's a difference between the playing and the creating sides of gaming.
Women have always played video games from the beginning. Even if they were not widely recognized or marketed to as being a part of the gaming community, women were still always there. I've been an avid gamer since I was a kind, and tons of other women have been as well.
Also, to say that games are inherently sexist is only partially true. It's definitely a problem that continues to be needed to be addressed, but I also feel it leaves out the vast and dynamic world of independent games that push back against cultural norms and challenge the status quo. The types of games that exist in the world are widely diverse, so while games like Call of Duty or other shooters might be focused on violence, there are a multitude of other games that provide different perspectives. For example, Wired just published a fascinating article on erotic games from LGBTQ+ developers https://www.wired.com/story/indie-lgbtq-games-sex/
I don't want to negate the problems that the gaming industry has. There's certainly a lot of toxicity and problems with racism and sexism that need to be considered and addressed. Work is being actively done in many areas to support more of this change.
Anyway, regarding what you should play first, I suppose that depends on kinds of games you might want to try playing and what type of system you have access to (PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch, phone, etc). I personally tend to play on Playstation 4 and prefer games that incorporate strong storytelling.
Journey (available on Playstation 4 and PC) is an indie adventure game with some light puzzle elements, in which you play as a cloaked figure wandering through a desert landscape. The art style is gorgeous and the story is imaginative emotionally compelling. It's also fairly simple to play and is on the shorter side (around 2-3 hours to finish), making it an excellent entry level game.
If you'd like to dip into something meatier, then I highly recommend Horizon: Zero Dawn (Playstation 4 and PC), which won a number of awards and in a phenomenal game from top to bottom. It's an action game with some RPG elements, presenting beautiful, strategic gameplay and a stunningly constructed world. The main character is a smart, resilient female lead and the story is fascinating. It takes about 40-50 hours to beat.
If you don't have access to Playstation 4 or PC, then I'd be happy to provide some other recommendations.
You're right, the "average" is a fiction. Of course there are (lots of) female gamers, women designers and even feminist games, but as an industry, on average, it is sexist... The average says nothing about the disparity, the distribution and the quality of what's out there... Exactly the same can be said about Hollywood. There are amazing independent films, lots of female artists, writers, directors etc... But ON AVERAGE it is disproportionately sexist as most of the financial & decisionary power is in the hands of men. So independent films can't reach the large audience that they could reach if they were supported more. And many more films never get made that should have been made
But perhaps what you mean is that rather than point to sexism one should highlight the women that are already there doing great stuff!
Alas, knowing too little I couldn't have done that...
Thank you for your recommendations btw. Journey seems like a good start :-)
I hope you'll share your experience playing whatever game you choose, whether it's Journey or something else. I'd love to see what you think.
Also, a resource for gaming news that I love is the What's Good Games podcast, which is hosted by three women, who share a roundup of major news announcements each week along with reviews and other commentary. They talk about a mixture of mainstream (AAA) games and indies.
And I'm also happy to talk games pretty much whenever. I love playing them and I'm hoping to become a part of making them at some point as well.
Hyper-intéressant, je n'avais jamais vu cela sous cet angle... et me vient une question (qui ne me plaît pas): est-ce que les femmes, notamment les mères, n'aiment tout simplement pas jouer? ou en tous cas moins que les hommes? Que ce soit aux jeux vidéo ou aux jeux de société, jeux de cartes, etc... dans les études sur les comportements parentaux, on voit souvent que les mamans s'occupent du repas, du bain, des devoirs, etc. et les papa jouent. Les jeux video ne seraient que la version digitale d'un phénomène beaucoup plus ancien? Nous sommes nombreux à avoir appris à jouer aux cartes ou aux échecs avec notre grand-père, peu avec notre grand-mère il me semble?
Jouer à un jeu, c'est quand même plus rigolo que pendre une machine et ranger le linge. Mais quand on a 70-80% des corvées et de la charge mentale, alors 1. on n'a pas autant de temps pour jouer ; 2. on est énervé et pas d'humeur à jouer. Du coup, on a le truc classique de la double peine = on fait les corvées ET on est perçu comme chiante (cad que personne n'est reconnaissant).
Le phénomène s'observe aussi dans les familles divorcées : les trucs fun avec le père (jouer aux jeux vidéo et manger des pizzas) ; les trucs chiants avec la mère (se laver les dents et manger des légumes).
Mais ça ne correspond aucunement à un désir ou non désir profond !!
Exactement !!! il faudrait donc (ré)apprendre aux femmes à jouer, car les petites filles savent bien sûr jouer dans leur enfance. Et puis, elle grandissent et... hop! le linge des gosses, la charge mentale, la double journée, et c'est terminé ou presque :-(
Oui, et d'ailleurs, quand on regarde les livres de sociologie sur le jeu des enfants, on voit que assez vite les filles s'orientent vers les jeux de soin / conversations (poupée, famille...) tandis que les garçons continuent de courir / jouer dans l'espace / construire etc... Et les jeux et jouets sont bien plus "genrés" (marketing) qu'il y a 30 ou 40 ans, hélas.
Hi,
Thank you so much for this article.
May the mysoginistic history of video games being related to the Japanese culture ? A lot of video games are Japanese, Nintendo played a huge part in the market, and I wonder if this culture could have affected the stereotypes of video games as a whole. I'm no expert of Japanese culture, but what I understood is that women are considered as second class citizens, highly sexualized and should put family before their career.
I'm not saying that American or European cultures are not mysoginistic, but I wonder if it could be related.
Anyway, here are some video games that I loved and recommend for begginers :)
- Zelda : Breath of the Wild
It's a RPG (Role Playing Game) where you play as Link, a boy who fight evil with a sword. Appart from the fighting part of the game, the landscapes are wonderful, and you could spend a lot of time just wondering around. There are also a lot of puzzles in the game to tease your brain.
Another RPG, much more mature and dark, is The Witcher III. It's still beautiful with such a scenario.
- Age Of Empires II
This is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) game where you build cities and armies to defeat your opponent. All of that under a historical scenario. There are a lot of games like this one with different environments : Age of Mythology (with old gods from all around the world), Warcraft III (fantasy), StarCarft (Science Fiction, this one is free).
There is also Polytopia on smartphone. It's free and kind of the same game.
- Pokemon
I'm sure you know this one. You capture and train monsters to become the best trainer and capture all of them. Collection, adventure, fight (but I would say not violent), friendship... It has everything.
And never forget to have some fun ;)
Thanks, Maxime for all these great ideas!
And yes, Japan must have played a big part in the misogynist culture of video games. I mentioned Nintendo too briefly... I should have thought of that!
Bonjour !
J’ai quelques suggestions à vous proposer. Ce sont tous des jeux qui m’ont beaucoup plu, qui sont légers (pas besoin d’avoir un ordinateur dernier cri) et courts (ils se terminent en quelques minutes ou quelques heures). Quand j’étais ado/jeune adulte, j’ai adoré jouer à des jeux qui demandent des dizaines d’heures pour en faire le tour, mais aujourd’hui je ne pourrais sans doute plus caser Skyrim dans ma vie de trentenaire.
Endless Scroll https://haraiva.itch.io/endless-scroll
« it's a game about high school memories, growth and being online late at night. » Je trouve que la description officielle du jeu le décrit bien, j’ai été très réceptif à la nostalgie qui s’en dégage. J’aime beaucoup les jeux de Cecile Richard de manière générale et l’émotion qui s’en dégage la plupart du temps, et celui-ci est mon préféré.
A Mortician’s Tale https://laundrybear.itch.io/morticians-tale
On incarne une jeune femme venant d’arriver dans une petite entreprise de pompes funèbres, et on prépare les corps, s’entretient brièvement avec les proches des défunts tout en se tenant au courant de la vie de l’entreprise et du monde des pompes funèbres en général. Paradoxalement il se dégage beaucoup de douceur de ce jeu, et je me souviens qu’avec ma sœur on s’était fait la remarque qu’on aimerait être accueilli comme l’héroïne si on arrivait dans une nouvelle entreprise, voire devenir le genre de personne capable d’accueillir les nouvelles recrues de cette façon.
A Short Hike https://adamgryu.itch.io/a-short-hike
On incarne une jeune femme en vacances sur une île, qui a pour but de faire une rando jusqu’au sommet. C’est aussi l’occasion de parler aux autres personnes sur l’île (un mécanisme nous oblige à nous intéresser un minimum à eux si on veut pouvoir aller jusqu’au sommet). C’est joli, le design des personnages rappelle celui d’Animal Crossing et les dialogues m’ont beaucoup plu, je les trouve fun :D
Devil Express https://bad-pet.itch.io/devil-express
On incarne un jeune homme travaillant pour une app de livraison qui sonne à la porte d’un immeuble peuplé de créatures surnaturelles, et se retrouve à intervenir auprès de chacune d’elles. Comme dans A Short Hike, les dialogues et les situations m’ont fait rire et je trouve que les créateurs du jeu ont bien réussi à donner un côté très millennial au jeu.
Triad https://w.itch.io/triad
Un très court jeu qui consiste à résoudre un puzzle : 3 personnes veulent dormir dans le même lit et on doit leur trouver la position qui va bien pour que personne ne donne de coup à personne (chat inclus) ni ne finisse par terre pendant la nuit. Ça fait partie des petits jeux indé où j’apprécie de me dire « nan mais quelqu’un a fait un jeu là dessus ? excellent il faut que je teste :D » Pet the pup at the party (https://grey2scale.itch.io/pet-the-pup) me fait rire pour la même raison : je n’y jouerais pas pendant des heures mais j’adore le fait que quelqu’un se soit dit « je vais créer un jeu sur le fait d’arriver à une fête où on ne connaît personne, d’entendre des aboiements et de vouloir soudain, absolument, aller caresser le chien »
Happy gaming!
Merci ! C'est un trésor de recommandations !! J'adore.
Morticians Tale m'intrigue. Je n'oublierai jamais la série Six Feet Under :-)
I love your writing and reading your newsletter in general, but I have some mixed feelings with how this post is framed. While you're certainly correct in that there is a disparity regarding how many women and minorities are in game development and that many mainstream games have had a focus on violence and misogyny, I'm a little put off by the phrasing that gaming is an "all male world," as I think there's a difference between the playing and the creating sides of gaming.
While the amount of women who make games is still low, women have been a part of game development since the beginning: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/a-brief-history-of-women-in-gaming-the-1980s-the-strong/CwKCGJf3HpdoIg?hl=en
Women have always played video games from the beginning. Even if they were not widely recognized or marketed to as being a part of the gaming community, women were still always there. I've been an avid gamer since I was a kind, and tons of other women have been as well.
Also, to say that games are inherently sexist is only partially true. It's definitely a problem that continues to be needed to be addressed, but I also feel it leaves out the vast and dynamic world of independent games that push back against cultural norms and challenge the status quo. The types of games that exist in the world are widely diverse, so while games like Call of Duty or other shooters might be focused on violence, there are a multitude of other games that provide different perspectives. For example, Wired just published a fascinating article on erotic games from LGBTQ+ developers https://www.wired.com/story/indie-lgbtq-games-sex/
I don't want to negate the problems that the gaming industry has. There's certainly a lot of toxicity and problems with racism and sexism that need to be considered and addressed. Work is being actively done in many areas to support more of this change.
Anyway, regarding what you should play first, I suppose that depends on kinds of games you might want to try playing and what type of system you have access to (PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch, phone, etc). I personally tend to play on Playstation 4 and prefer games that incorporate strong storytelling.
Journey (available on Playstation 4 and PC) is an indie adventure game with some light puzzle elements, in which you play as a cloaked figure wandering through a desert landscape. The art style is gorgeous and the story is imaginative emotionally compelling. It's also fairly simple to play and is on the shorter side (around 2-3 hours to finish), making it an excellent entry level game.
If you'd like to dip into something meatier, then I highly recommend Horizon: Zero Dawn (Playstation 4 and PC), which won a number of awards and in a phenomenal game from top to bottom. It's an action game with some RPG elements, presenting beautiful, strategic gameplay and a stunningly constructed world. The main character is a smart, resilient female lead and the story is fascinating. It takes about 40-50 hours to beat.
If you don't have access to Playstation 4 or PC, then I'd be happy to provide some other recommendations.
You're right, the "average" is a fiction. Of course there are (lots of) female gamers, women designers and even feminist games, but as an industry, on average, it is sexist... The average says nothing about the disparity, the distribution and the quality of what's out there... Exactly the same can be said about Hollywood. There are amazing independent films, lots of female artists, writers, directors etc... But ON AVERAGE it is disproportionately sexist as most of the financial & decisionary power is in the hands of men. So independent films can't reach the large audience that they could reach if they were supported more. And many more films never get made that should have been made
But perhaps what you mean is that rather than point to sexism one should highlight the women that are already there doing great stuff!
Alas, knowing too little I couldn't have done that...
Thank you for your recommendations btw. Journey seems like a good start :-)
I hope you'll share your experience playing whatever game you choose, whether it's Journey or something else. I'd love to see what you think.
Also, a resource for gaming news that I love is the What's Good Games podcast, which is hosted by three women, who share a roundup of major news announcements each week along with reviews and other commentary. They talk about a mixture of mainstream (AAA) games and indies.
And I'm also happy to talk games pretty much whenever. I love playing them and I'm hoping to become a part of making them at some point as well.
I definitely should do a follow-up on my gaming "debut". Thanks, Andrea!
Hyper-intéressant, je n'avais jamais vu cela sous cet angle... et me vient une question (qui ne me plaît pas): est-ce que les femmes, notamment les mères, n'aiment tout simplement pas jouer? ou en tous cas moins que les hommes? Que ce soit aux jeux vidéo ou aux jeux de société, jeux de cartes, etc... dans les études sur les comportements parentaux, on voit souvent que les mamans s'occupent du repas, du bain, des devoirs, etc. et les papa jouent. Les jeux video ne seraient que la version digitale d'un phénomène beaucoup plus ancien? Nous sommes nombreux à avoir appris à jouer aux cartes ou aux échecs avec notre grand-père, peu avec notre grand-mère il me semble?
Jouer à un jeu, c'est quand même plus rigolo que pendre une machine et ranger le linge. Mais quand on a 70-80% des corvées et de la charge mentale, alors 1. on n'a pas autant de temps pour jouer ; 2. on est énervé et pas d'humeur à jouer. Du coup, on a le truc classique de la double peine = on fait les corvées ET on est perçu comme chiante (cad que personne n'est reconnaissant).
Le phénomène s'observe aussi dans les familles divorcées : les trucs fun avec le père (jouer aux jeux vidéo et manger des pizzas) ; les trucs chiants avec la mère (se laver les dents et manger des légumes).
Mais ça ne correspond aucunement à un désir ou non désir profond !!
Exactement !!! il faudrait donc (ré)apprendre aux femmes à jouer, car les petites filles savent bien sûr jouer dans leur enfance. Et puis, elle grandissent et... hop! le linge des gosses, la charge mentale, la double journée, et c'est terminé ou presque :-(
Oui, et d'ailleurs, quand on regarde les livres de sociologie sur le jeu des enfants, on voit que assez vite les filles s'orientent vers les jeux de soin / conversations (poupée, famille...) tandis que les garçons continuent de courir / jouer dans l'espace / construire etc... Et les jeux et jouets sont bien plus "genrés" (marketing) qu'il y a 30 ou 40 ans, hélas.