Shortly after the trailer of Black Myth: Wukong was released in 2020 and caused a stir worldwide, CEO Feng Ji made sexually explicit comments This led to some boycotting the game. Graphics the company used on its recruitment posters in 2015 – one image showed a man holding a can of Red Bull in front of his genitals – also came under criticism.
The studio has not publicly apologized, and its supporters say the criticism is intended to stir up hostile feelings between the sexes.
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Will China’s first triple-A game “Black Myth: Wukong” reach global heights?
Will China’s first triple-A game “Black Myth: Wukong” reach global heights?
Unfortunately, sexism has been widespread in the global gaming industry for years. Many may remember:Gamergate”, a coordinated harassment campaign against women in the gaming industry that originated in a 2014 blog post by 24-year-old American Eron Gjoni. In it, he made unsubstantiated accusations against his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn, an independent game developer, claiming that she had exchanged sex for positive reviews. An army of trolls then seized the opportunity to police a woman’s sexual behavior under the guise of promoting “ethics in gaming journalism.”
As an active gamer since middle school, while I haven’t encountered anything as bad as Gamergate, I have experienced my share of harassment, stereotyping, and derogatory comments.
Female gamers are sexually harassed far too often on the Internet. A post from 2020 report quoted a woman who said she was asked about her bra size while playing Dota2and she was told that she was playing games “because she was too ugly to have a boyfriend.”
Another common sexist belief is that women are bad at gaming, especially when it comes to fighting games. Some claim this is the reason why there are so few successful female gamers in esports. This is often linked to the stereotype that women are not suited to fighting games and should stick to mobile games or Otome games – Love games with a story aimed at women and in which the female protagonist is surrounded by a group of men.
This reflects the world we live in, where combat itself is seen as a male domain. In the minds of too many male gamers, women either have no interest in it or are incapable of devising battle plans. Women’s lack of voice in the gaming industry only reinforces this belief.
In recent years, the number of female gamers has increased, but they are still not considered to have purchasing power. According to a report by the State Association of the Game Industry, there were 300 million female gamers in China in 2019, accounting for 46.2 percent of all gamers in the country.
One of China’s biggest mobile games of all time, Honor of Kingshad more female than male gamers, although women did not spend nearly as much on the games they played, according to the report, which also said they accounted for less than a quarter of gaming revenue in China.
There are also very few female producers, designers or programmers at production companies. This has resulted in character and plot development being male-centric, with female characters often being scantily clad and having large breasts.
In many role-playing games, the protagonists are male, while female characters are their lovers or appear in side stories, often without full character development.
Female gamers are well aware of the problem and are speaking out about it. I often visit a women-only gaming forum where gamers discuss which games make them uncomfortable and what seems to have improved.
One poster noted that while Mario still had to save a princess in Nintendo’s 2017 Super Mario Odyssey, the princess walks away at the end, refusing to choose between him and another character. “They have a more advanced gender perspective now,” the poster wrote.
The forum also includes posts from female producers recruiting others to work together on a game for women. These may be small steps, but they show that there is hope for change.
Finally, until we effectively combat gender discrimination in the real world, misogyny will continue to be a problem in the gaming world.