The recent kerfuffle over Leigh Alexander's article on mature versus juvenile sexuality in games reinforced some observations I've been making for the past few years, and highlighted a few more problems I have with the way the discussion tends to turn. Sometimes, I think it just highlights how immature the gaming community can be that we can't discuss the issue of cleavage without resorting to name-calling. Still, sex and visual culture has been on my mind recently thanks to my current research - and if being submersed in films and film culture will do anything, it will dredge up plenty of examples of good depictions of sex, bad depictions of sex, and everything in between. And to be honest, I think the gaming industry by and large has a lot to learn from the older medium of film: from the good, the bad, and the ugly.

While games aren't film, there are a lot of parallels in the ways stories are told and the fact that both are visual mediums. Certainly, there's plenty of bad sex and sexuality on screens across the world, but there's plenty of rich and wonderful depictions, too. Some people say we shouldn't look towards film, but until the medium leaps beyond our current way of telling stories via consoles and handhelds, I think we should be looking to the more established, more mature medium for inspiration (at least some of the time). It couldn't possibly hurt for the most part. It's delightful to ruminate on the emotive power of future video games with fancy technology that's way, way ahead of what the industry can currently produce - but despite the arguments against looking to film for tips on narrative design, games on the whole can barely manage to string together a creative, original, well-developed and well-written narrative.

One of Alexander's points in her Aberrant Gamer column was that it's often the subtle relationships that take on the most power - hand holding in ICO, watching the relationship of two adults through the eyes of a teenager in Final Fantasy XII. It's not the sex/sexual overtones/sexuality for the sake of titillation that so often seems to crop up in games, either with the physical acts or having pixilated tits on display. I'm of the humble opinion that it's easier to whip up a scantily clad character to insert some 'sex appeal' into a game (or movie) than it is to create that same sex appeal through, say, character development. How many films and games have thrown in the more overt sex/sex appeal as an afterthought - "Damn, we forgot the sexy bits, and people like sexy bits - let's throw in some mostly naked people." It feels like an afterthought, and that's a shame, because adding sexuality to the mix can heighten the emotional impact a story has on the viewer. A beloved-but-not-great film in my collection is The Peony Pavilion (not to be confused with the original) - after a subtle handling of the complicated friendship between two women, the not terribly convincing love scene between one of the female leads and her first man crush is not only unerotic, it's jarring, out of place, and only serves to yank the viewer out of what is otherwise a beautiful and rather dreamy film.

On the other side of the coin, one of the most erotic scenes I've ever seen (and I've watched a lot of film) is from Red Sorghum. Early in the film, Gong Li's little wedding procession is waylaid by a bandit, who pulls back the red curtain of her litter, reaches out, and squeezes her red slippered foot. She looks up at him and smiles. It's an erotic, if subtle, moment, far more so than watching various video game vixens or vapid starlets slither about on screen in few or no clothes. It's way more erotic than watching a 'sex scene' that seems tacked on as an afterthought. We're talking about squeezing a foot - even if you aren't terribly aware of the sexual power of the slippered foot in imperial China, it's hard not to see the sexuality that rolls off the screen. More than that, Gong Li's character shifts from a shy girl to being aware of the power of her own sexuality. All this with a foot squeeze and a look, the tilt of a chin, a smile. Video games are capable of this level of subtlety and nuance, but it's a capability that has, thus far, been more or less unexplored.

In short, boobs are the easy way out. Overt sexuality is an easy way out - instant titillation with the ensuing hordes of ogling fan boys and girls is a hell of a lot easier than trying to sell sexuality of a subtler stripe. Sex - and overt sex appeal - has its place, but the fact remains that it's more difficult to craft complex characters, the ones that ooze sex appeal without cartoonish proportions, than it is to put a pixelated body on display. They're less dangerous, too, people on display, easier to put in their place as a sexpot or vapid curvy creature - it's the Gong Lis of the world who are dangerous, the ones who are well aware of the power of what they aren't showing, the ones who can lure and tempt the unwitting man into god only knows what. The ones who know they have more going for them than overexposed cleavage are temptation to the extreme. The lovely courtesans of imperial China (the 'talented women,' not the streetwalkers) were renowned for their beauty, their myriad talents (usually in poetry, painting, or calligraphy), their charming company, their manners. Even wives developed friendships with these multi-talented vixens. There's no doubt that sexuality and beauty played a huge role in vaulting the talented girls to the top of the courtesan heap, but they are deeper than just their stunning figures; pretty figures and faces are a dime a dozen. The most talented had a throngs of adoring admirers (Ming dynasty fan boys and girls?) for several reasons, no matter how sharp their tongue. History, novels and films are all full of these complex, subtle women, vividly sexual beings without being shallow or cheap, but video games seem to lack in this regard.

Let's live dangerously here: any reason the good girl can't vamp around screen every now and again? Does the vamp have to be a man-eater all the time? Characters tend to be shuffled into one category or another, and there is a bit of a madonna/whore complex going on when it comes to women. Characterization of men, I must hasten to add, isn't much better, and just another example that what we really need is better writing, better narrative, better characterization. If the sad, consumptive opera singer of the aforementioned Peony Pavilion can be by turns depressed housewife, tender-hearted friend, and vixenish seductress - if complex characters can emerge out of what amounts to a very average production - why in the world can't equally complex characters emerge from powerhouse development teams at great studios with more frequency than we currently see?

One of my favorite modern films, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, features Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai playacting a suspected affair between their cheating spouses. Maggie Cheung, while wearing an astonishing number of tight fitting qipao throughout the film, isn't cultivating sexuality via skin. She's not vamping and pouting her way through the plot; we never see a sex scene, or anything even approaching torrid, happen between the jilted, playacting spouses. And yet - the two are wonderful to watch on screen together. It's passion of a less unbridled sort, developed with looks and posture and body language, but it smolders throughout the movie - and it's sexy as hell to watch them on screen together. Tony Leung once said in an interview that despite playing opposite each other in a number of films, he and Cheung deliberately see each other infrequently to preserve mystery in their relationship. It's partly that mystery that's devastatingly sexy, and the reason I'll suffer through having to watch Zhang Ziyi attempt to act just to see Cheung and Leung work their on-screen magic.

I don't think we're ready for the Wong Kar-wai of video games - I'm certainly not ready for Wong Kar-wai on my console or handheld - but if he and other directors can manage to convey sexuality and well-developed relationships, to say nothing of creating desirable on-screen sirens, in two hours and without resorting to cheap titillation, surely whoever's in charge of the story board for a game that may well have much, much more time to develop and explore characters than your average big screen picture could do the same. Let's have the good girl show some skin and the bad girl cover up a little for a change, or at least admit that's an option. We, and the characters, deserve more richness and diversity in the characterization mix. When the good girl goes 'sexy,' you wind up with Yuna of Final Fantasy X-2. While I think there are some arguments to be made for the 'liberation of Yuna' and ensuing clothing loss and radical change of personality, couldn't they have sexed up the clothing and character without turning her into a giggling idiot for three quarters of the game? No wonder Paine looked like she was nursing a bad headache most of the time.

This really isn't about sex, nudity, breasts, or anything else; it's all in the handling. There's a 2001 documentary (of sorts) that follows the lives of a lesbian couple in Beijing. They're perfectly normal people and a loving couple, they just like to spend lots of time doing their daily in-house activities in the buff. We see them cooking dinner, cleaning, hanging out, showering, hopping in bed - and yet, despite their nudity and their engagement in activities that could easily become fodder for softcore porn, it doesn't feel cheap, it doesn't feel like a copout. Of course, there are plenty of 'artistic,' 'independent,' or 'underground' films that are just as guilty of using gratuitous sex or nudity to say nothing more than 'Hey! Our headliners look good naked! Watch our film!'. And on the flip side, plenty of big budget pictures have tackled sex and naked people with aplomb. This is all about the direction, the cutting, the crafting of the film. This stuff doesn't just happen - it takes talent and the desire to create something more.

With all the emphasis on realism in graphics, you'd hope that people would be equally concerned with realism in characterization (I suppose that particular divide is a conversation saved for another day). Still, considering what can be conveyed visually these days, it should be even easier to create narratives and characters that are compelling in a way that the written word sometimes isn't. And no temperamental prima donna actresses to worry about!

We have the talent in spades - now it's time for the desire to create rich characters and engaging narratives to follow. Jiggling breasts et al. are, at this point, a copout - an easy way to create sex appeal. From better writing, better characterization, more thoughtful creation will flow better depictions of sexuality and sex. And I daresay some of those maligned, subtler, more 'mature' aspects will add a certain element of sexiness that is, for the most part, currently lacking in games. I wouldn't want gaming to resemble an art house theatre and nothing but, but we're in no danger of that - I'm just looking for more options, just like I have when I flip through my DVD collections. I'm patiently waiting for the gaming vixen who knocks us dead in her first appearance, and not with her unrealistic proportions. She'll appear someday ... I hope.

Some games are meant to be nothing more than entertainment, just as many movies are. Even the great 'social dramas' of the silver screen were sold to the masses on sex appeal and escape. But I'm at a loss to see how more diversity and better crafting would hurt any of us in the long run. Jiggling pixels are never going to go away - but it's time to add more (a lot more) than that.

Notes on film screens, in order: The Actress/Centre Stage [阮玲玉] (1992); The Pillow Book (1996); In the Mood for Love [花樣年華] (2000); Peony Pavilion [遊園驚夢] (2001); Red Sorghum [紅高梁] (1987); Peony Pavilion; In the Mood for Love; still from The Goddess [神女] (1934) from The Actress.

Can't figure out why your old lady won't sit and play Halo 3 with you, guys? Don't know why the man in your life won't stop playing Call of Duty 4 until the wee hours of the morning, ladies? According to a new study by the Stanford School of Medicine, the part of the brain that gives of a feeling of reward and accomplishment is more active in men than in women.

Twenty-two men and women were given a simple game, in which they had to control a number of balls and a wall in a certain way to protect territory and ultimately win the game, while their brain patterns were tracked on a fMRI machine.

"The females 'got' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Reiss, who is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."

Both groups showed activity in the mesocorticolimbic center, which is the part of the brain associated with rewards and addictions, but the males showed a lot more activity.

So there you have it. Could this really be the reason your girlfriend won't play Xbox with you? I guess it would account for the higher number of males that play video games than females, and would also make sense why not all guys love games, and why not all girls don't. After all, having a gendered brain doesn't mean that your brain is exactly the same as everyone else of your gender, just similar. I think it also comes down to nature vs. nurture, too: video games are becoming a bigger part of our culture, so regardless of how your brain is wired, you'll be more inclined to play games. More information on the study in the press release after the jump.

02/04/08

VIDEO GAMES ACTIVATE REWARD REGIONS OF BRAIN IN MEN MORE THAN WOMEN,
STANFORD STUDY FINDS

STANFORD, Calif. - Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can't put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play.

"These gender differences may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become 'hooked' on video games than females," the researchers wrote in their paper, which was recently published online in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

More than 230 million video and computer games were sold in 2005, and polls show that 40 percent of Americans play games on a computer or a console. According to a 2007 Harris Interactive survey, young males are two to three times more likely than females to feel addicted to video games, such as the Halo series so popular in recent years.

Despite the popularity of video and computer games, little is known about the neural processes that occur as people play these games. And no research had been done on gender-specific differences in the brain's response to video games.

Reiss, senior author of the study and the Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has long been interested in studying gender differences; in 2005, he published a study showing that men and women process humor differently. He and his colleagues became interested in exploring the concept of territoriality, and they determined the best way to do so was with a simple computer game.

The researchers designed a game involving a vertical line (the "wall") in the middle of a computer screen. When the game begins, 10 balls appear to the right of the wall and travel left toward the wall. Each time a ball is clicked, it disappears from the screen. If the balls are kept a certain
distance from the wall, the wall moves to the right and the player gains territory, or space, on the screen. If a ball hits the wall before it's clicked, the line moves to the left and the player loses territory on the screen.

During this study, 22 young adults (11 men and 11 women) played numerous 24-second intervals of the game while being hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine. fMRI is designed to produce a dynamic image showing which parts of the brain are working during a given activity.

Study participants were instructed to click as many balls as possible; they weren't told that they could gain or lose territory depending on what they did with the balls. Reiss said all participants quickly learned the point of the game, and the male and female participants wound up clicking on the same number of balls. The men, however, wound up gaining a significantly greater amount of space than the women. That's because the men identified which balls - the ones closest to the "wall" - would help them acquire the most space if clicked.

"The females 'got' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Reiss, who is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."

After analyzing the imaging data for the entire group, the researchers found that the participants showed activation in the brain's mesocorticolimbic center, the region typically associated with reward and addiction. Male brains, however, showed much greater activation, and the amount of
activation was correlated with how much territory they gained. (This wasn't the case with women.) Three structures within the reward circuit - the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex - were also shown to influence each other much more in men than in women. And the better connected this circuit was, the better males performed in the game.

The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss, for one, isn't surprised. "I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial," he said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they're the males."

Reiss said this research also suggests that males have neural circuitry that makes them more liable than women to feel rewarded by a computer game with a territorial component and then more motivated to continue game-playing behavior. Based on this, he said, it makes sense that males are more prone to getting hooked on video games than females.

"Most of the computer games that are really popular with males are territory- and aggression-type games," he pointed out.

Reiss said the team's findings may apply to other types of video and computer games. "This is a fairly representative, generic computer game," he said, adding that he and his colleagues are planning further work in this area.

Fumiko Hoeft, MD, PhD, senior research scientist, was first author of the study. Co-authors include Christa Watson, social science research assistant; Shelli Kesler, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; and Keith Bettinger, software developer.

# # #

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.

To understand what Endless Ocean does differently, you have to look at the other products. I think the most obvious is "Pet Vet 3D: Animal Hospital". This is a prime example of something I would call "Pink Ware" (somebody used that term in Clash of Realities) - products deliberately made for young girls. Just look at the packaging! Everything is in PINK because as we all know, PINK is the girl-color. The font is fluffy and curly like marshmallows because they are sweet and girls like sweets (in Germany it is PINK as well). There is also cute Barbie-look-alike on the package reinforcing the girl-oriented nature of the game even further. Oh yeah and there are some stars because you couldn't really tell if it was a game for girls if there were no stars.

As you can imagine, I have a deep problem with Pink Ware. In a way, Pink Ware is just as bad as the clichéd niche Products we are used to. In fact they are even worse. I can imagine a girl (or rather a woman) playing Doom III or Counter Strike. I can't imagine a boy picking up Animal Hospital.

Man Bytes Blog takes on misogyny, Unfettered Blather looks at objectification, and Only A Game (one of my pet favorites) looks at the new 'gender agenda.' The current crop is worth a read through if anything catches your interest, as are the archives.

Blogs of the Round Table [Man Bytes Blog]

"Everyone always thought that casual games were something that only appeal to women," Jessica Tams, managing director of the [Casual Games Association], said in an interview. "We have always been obsessed about making games for women."

Surveys of players showed that while nearly three-fourths of people who bought casual games were women, the players of such games were split 50-50 between the sexes.

The reason men have not been reflected in the data so far is because most males are fans of realistic, "hard-core" games, and many do not admit that they like to play simpler games involving shiny gems or lines of colored balls.

I can't understand why having some casual games on your laptop (or your 360, for that matter) is some shameful secret - a case of 'real men don't play PopCap games'?

Men also avid players of casual video games: study [Reuters via CNET]

Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) subsidiary Aurora Technology has frozen game accounts of male players who chose to play female in-game characters in its in-house developed MMORPG King of the World, reports 17173. Aurora stipulates that only female gamers can play female characters in the game, and it requires gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam, according to the report.

PlayNoEvil's commentary points out that this doesn't seem like it will last long: a webcam gender verification system seems to be fraught with potential problems and headaches, and Aurora is trying to remove at least one aspect that attracts some people to online, fantasy-based games: the chance to be someone or something else.

Shanda's Aurora Bans Transsexuals [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil]

PS. If I stole this link from someone, send me an email. I can't find where I got the link.

What are the perks and downsides of being a female in a male dominated industry? Jane over at game girl advance had a December 2006 response up to another opinion piece over at WomenGamers.com, and as is typical to the exceedingly broad question of women and gaming, there are no clear cut answers.

Any female that is a gamer has probably stumbled upon the dual problem/upside of being a girl who likes video games: Much as people of both genders cry that people are people, boobs or not, it's still an obvious difference, and a selling point (or a detriment). But even though one of my primary academic interests is in an extremely male dominated sub-field (military history), I've never felt put on the spot to "speak for womenkind," as the GGA piece terms it - except in relation to writing about video games. So I guess I have my own question: Why is that? Maggie Greene

When Feminine Is An Advantage [game girl advance]
On Being a Girl in the Games Industry [WomenGamers.com via GGA]

Why? Simple really. If I'm going to look at a character for ten to forty hours (or a hundred, as I did in Phantasy Star Online), it had better be something I'm fond of looking at. (It's not that uncommon for me to have spent 2 or more hours designing my perfect fake female. I'm picky!)

On the other hand, some friends of mine like to exploit the horny teens and lonely adults who will hit on anything with polygonal breasts. These friends always took advantage of the gender mystery, using their girly avatars to con armor, weapons and favors from men who go ga-ga over the possibility of finding an underwear model/WoW addict who prefers pot bellies.

This week's issue of the Escapist has a swell tale of author Bruce Sterling Woodcock's journey from sexy MUD cybering to learning about the online social interaction between men and men—when one of those men is a virtual woman. Also includes a warning about how sneaky e-ladies might see their veil lifted by changes in technology.

In the meantime, any other gender switchers out there? Michael "Yumi" McWhertor

Confessions of an MMOG Cross-Dresser [The Escapist]

In Newsweekly, companion website to In Newsweekly, New England's largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news and entertainment weekly, has posted a story on a new survey meant specifically for GLBT gamers, or "gaymers" as the article so coyly quotates.

The whole piece stinks of two things I hate: splitting an already disadvantaged minority (gamers) into potentially conflicting factions; and assigning previously-constructed stereotypes to the new group.

First we need to prove that homosexual gamers even exist. Yeah it sounds ridiculous, but that's where you have to start on something like this. This survey is an attempt to quantify the existence of an invisible minority.

I think this minority is invisible because who a gamer likes to boink has no practical application here, except possibly as a marketing tool. It's the same issue I have with the constant barrage of "women in games" crowing: the longer we tell each other that a gamer girl is a rare and mysterious thing, the longer she will remain so.

I'm with Dan Savage on this issue. Let homosexuality be normal. True tolerance isn't making special recognitions of your fellow gamers' differences, but simply not caring in the first place.

As a possibly self-defeating aside, I once got warned by Blizzard for saying "hey it's okay to be gay" in Barrens Chat. Amid an ocean of "stfu fagget". So now I say it every chance I get. Eliza Gauger, or possibly Gayger

Gay video game player survey [In Newsweekly]

Apparently, they feel aggrieved that male avatars tend to be stronger and have more endurance than female avatars. What do female avatars excel in? Intelligence, charisma, agility and willpower.

Gee, how crushing: to be hopelessly stereotyped by Bethesda's constabulary of misogynist bastards as beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed and charming. Meanwhile, male Oblivion players don't seem to be getting upset at all about being stereotyped by Bethesda as brutish lunkheads.

Bethesda — in a display of common sense which they really should have put to use when pricing their stupid horse mod — are defending themselves against the charges, sort of subtly pointing out how stupid it all is.

Bethesda Comments on Oblivion Gender Bias Concerns [Pass The Press]

Um... what? What the hell does "eye contact" even mean in reference to MMORPGs? How can you even determine if you're looking another character in the eye? And, even if you were, what the hell would the point be? You maintain eye contact with a human being because their facial expressions give us valuable clues as to what they think or feel. The action is intimate: it creates a bond between two speakers. Looking someone in the eye is meaningless in games without facial expressions, where every thing another person has to say pops up in a cartoon bubble over their head.

We call bullshit. And if our experience having gnomish warlocks wander up behind our World of Warcraft avatars and obsessively dancing and slapping our asses is anything to go by, we're pretty skeptical of the "Male avatars stand further away from each other than female avatars" claim too.

Come to think of it: how can you make any sort of gender distinction in an MMORPG? The most likely gender to play a female character in an MMORPG are guys.

GDC: The Social Dimensions of Digital Gaming [Wonderland]

The Eye Opener has an interesting story up about gender equality in gaming. The story points out the whole 43-percent-of-gamers-are-women thing and then digs into the lack of key female industry types and gender neutral games. It's an interesting read.

Wait, what's this, you must be thinking. Did Brian give up on posting just about clothes and games today? Not by a long shot my friends. About two thirds into the story, there's this interesting tidbit:

Xaida Zyvatkauskas, a first-year humanities student at the University of Toronto, is also a member of ARRG. She is an avid player of RPG games, and acknowledges that the stereotype of the busty female lead holds true.

"I'm playing Guild Wars right now, and there seems to be a weird relationship between the quality of armour and the amount of clothes the female characters wear," she says.

The better the armour, the more scantily clad the women become. The characters feature large, perky breasts, visible nipples and a tiny waist. Male characters are also very physically fit.
"The games, the characters, are becoming more sexually suggestive, and are very much designed for male sexual fantasies," Jenkins says.

Women Save the Princess [The Eye Opener]

Thumb Bandits points out a petition for optional gender in Lionhead's sequel to Fable. The guy behind the petition estimates that Fable could presumably double its user base if it included the ability to select the fairer sex. Considering the amount of female Night Elf Rogues in World of Warcraft, he might not be too far off.

Petition for Optional Gender in Lionhead Studios' Fable 2 [The Petition]
Mr. Lake - May All Gamers Learn From Thee [Thumb Bandits]
Fable 2 Xbox 360 Details