Cash

Dude this is really good, hard to believe you're the guy who was feeling bad about his DKC remix. Nice work! I don't know much about guitars and no obvious issues stand out at me, so I can't add anything to what Brandon said. Just wanted to give my support.

I've never heard of the game or its music, but that source is great. I love the style, what made you decide to go with a pirate theme? I can hear the bass issue, but it shouldn't be too hard to fix. Really amazing work, I hope to hear more from you.

Neblix is right, you really should upgrade.

I like the changes you made to the melody. The timing of the counter melody and drums sounds off to me from 0:15 until the end. Good start.

Happy birthday!

Nice job dude, I like the changes you made. Everything seems to fit to me, though after a while that wah wah synth starts to rub me the wrong way. It sounds nice, but it seems to stick out a little bit too much, maybe it's just me.

This is true. It's a two-sided coin; social trends and advertising. It's hard to say how much one side affects public perception versus the other. I can't accurately say the marketing of video games simply responds to social trends, and you can't accurately say the marketing of video games determines the public's perception. Not that you're trying to say that (correct me if I'm wrong). I completely agree that great characters, both men and women, are few and far between. My sister grew up the same way, in terms of my parents not pressing gender roles, as you may have read in one of my earlier posts. She always played video games with my brother and I, none of us thought anything of the fact that she happened to be female. As a result, women playing games seems normal to me. It's a shame that some parents raise their children to follow ridiculous gender roles, as you said.

The ESA study also shows that 46% of game purchasers are female, at least 40% are also playing the games that they buy. If playing iPhone games counts as being a gamer, than I'd say the number of females is even higher. More and more women are getting into casual gaming, the number is probably higher now. I don't have any data to back it up, so take my statement with a grain of salt, as the saying goes.

Yeah, there is a stigma, but I think it has to do with our society, rather than marketing. The marketing is a response to what the majority of people will buy. Businesses want to make money, the best way to do that is to appeal to the majority. In the case you mentioned, dolls are marketed to girls because they are the ones who are most likely to play with dolls. It makes sense from a business standpoint. I think the issue lies more with the underlying stigmas in our society, than marketing. Again, based on the ESA study, the fact that 46% of game purchasers are female and 40% of females are gamers, makes me question that most games are aimed at males. Not to mention that the word most is subjective and difficult to quantify without studying a large amount and variety of games and their marketing campaigns.

Well yes, it does depend on the game. That's why making a sweeping statement saying video games, as a medium, is marketed towards men, is inaccurate.

You got me there, bad example on my part. Sexism has to do with discrimination, does it really discriminate against girls to market toy cars to boys? It's not like girls are prevented from playing with cars. Again, I would argue video games are not marketed towards males. That would be excluding nearly half of the demographic, which would be stupid from a business standpoint. I'm not necessarily saying his questioning method or venue was good, or bad. I was referring to the actual questions themselves, which were more appropriate than the questions you proposed. The complaints by Monobrow seemed to be more aimed at the women he asked and the location, the fact that most of them probably hadn't played a game in many years, rather than his questions.

At least it's some data, as far as I've seen, you have none. You can of course have conjectures, but without data, it doesn't go very far. Asking some women is better than asking none. At least Darangen's argument is backed by some data, as inconclusive as it may be, your argument currently has no data at all. The questions you proposed are suggestive. Those are tilted towards a specific answer that you're looking for, questions should be impartial, or else the results may be skewed. The way Darangen asked his questions was impartial; "Do you play video games?" followed by "Why don't you play video games?" when the answer was no. Your questions are clearly biased, and would get less accurate answers. And still, you haven't actually asked any questions. Wrong, marketing something to a specific gender is not sexist. bad example removed Would you say when a romantic comedy is marketed specifically towards women, it's sexist? Sexism involves discrimination, I'm not sure marketing towards a certain gender is really discrimination, the other gender can still go out and buy the product and use it. I actually question that video games are marketed towards males. According to this study by the ESA, 46% of game purchasers are female. The study also says that 40% of gamers are female. So you gotta figure at least 40 of the 46% of the women that buy games also play them. Why would games be marketed solely to males when 40% of gamers (game players) are female? True, but that form of sexism has nothing to do with the content of video games. It has to do with our society as a whole.

What I meant was the few pages that I didn't fully read, I skimmed. In that case, I should have said "most people here know sexism exists in video games." Or better yet, said nothing. It has nothing to do with thinking forums are meant for me, I don't see how you got that out of "I didn't read every page." I'm sure you don't always read every page of every thread before posting. It wasn't the "biggest, most powerful facepalm," don't get all excited. Sorry for derailing this thread. EDIT: To bring this back on topic, I think not as many women playing games has more to do with the stigma the girls don't play video games. A lot of women now grew up when that stigma was fairly strong. I think that stigma is disappearing, and that we'll see much more women playing video games in the coming years. I also want to make the point that the males everywhere should be careful when discussing what appeals/doesn't appeal to women. Games like Soul Calibur and CoD that supposedly appeal to males, are appealing to plenty of women as well. I don't really think there as many games that portray women stupidly as some people here think. For every game that show women as sex objects, I could name a game that is completely neutral when it comes to gender roles. That's not to say that the portrayal of women isn't a problem, of course it is. I think the best solution is to encourage women to make their voice heard about these issues, and to get involved in making games, as was brought up earlier. Of course, we also should try to encourage less bullshit over the internet, I don't really know the best way to do that. And spreading awareness about the portrayal of women is important, but not bludgeon people (literally, and with words) over the head any time someone disagrees (not accusing anyone in this thread of doing that). That only makes things worse. Also, we shouldn't lunge at men who make legitimate complaints about stereotypical/stupid male characters in video games.

No, most people here know that sexism exists in video games and that many games are targeted towards men (correct me if I'm wrong, I skimmed through a few pages), though not all agree that it is a problem. However, a lot of people here are not convinced that the objectification of women is the main reason there aren't as many female gamers.

I don't think this has been linked, so if it already has, sorry. Extra Credits did an episode last year on what makes a good female character.

Wow, awesome work dude! Great style, it fits the song perfectly. Can't wait to hear more.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I didn't mean to ignore you or anything (I hope you're still reading this thread). Good points that you made, I definitely agree that women's behavior and dress should be back by a believable reason. Yeah, I always felt Ashe was dressed stupidly for the situation, a princess fighting in a resistance would try to blend in a little better. Excellent point about Aeris, I never thought of it that way. It would be really hard to travel in a full length dress. I haven't played Pokemon Black/White, but good points you brought up there as well. It is indeed hard to take a game seriously when the dress and behavior of the characters, women in this case, doesn't make sense. Rachel from Ninja Gaiden is an idiot who I just can't take seriously. Luckily the game was mostly about Ryu. Many of the female fighters in Soul Calibur are laughable, even though some of them are pretty tough. It's disappointing to see such characters in video games, I ask myself "is this really what guys want?" I mean, if you want to see boobs, check out Playboy or internet porn. Of course, if the story has some intelligent and believable reason for large breasted, scantily clad women, go for it. Zelda is a good example of a strong female with logical clothing. When she dresses as Sheik, it also makes sense, we're not even supposed to know she's a woman. I'm not sure if you played FF9, but I think Dagger is a great example of a strong female lead. When she travels with Zidane, her clothes make sense for the situation. She's also a strong willed character, with realistic emotions. Dagger is never your typical damsel in distress, even when she's captured. Terra from FF6 is also a good example. You made some great points here, and I agree with them. Again, sorry I didn't respond sooner.

^These games. Also, a lot of Western fantasy rpg's have women in ridiculous bikini armor. Don't forget that sexualized women isn't the only problem, the desperate lack of strong female leads is also an issue. Many Western games suffer from this. Of course, the standard male lead often leaves much to be desired. My Shephard is black.

Yeah, that's the kick I was hoping for, much better. I think it could use a little more power and umph, but definitely better. I hear that you turned down the volume on the high synth in the intro, it sounds good now.

It has in some places, but I know Germany refused to sign it.

Great post Monobrow. I feel bad for not responding to the comments from Irish, especially since I asked a question directed at women. Sorry about that, I was too caught up in the argument. Also, I hope my comments about sexism towards males didn't imply that I'm ignoring the issues of female portrayal in games. Monobrow, your post reminds me of how my sister, now 26 and soon getting married to a gamer, grew up playing video games with my brother and I, and her friend. The first gaming console we had was Super Nintendo, and it came free with Super Mario All-Stars. My first game memories are of Mario Bros. 3, we were all under ten years old at the time. Back in those days, I actually used to watch my brother and sister try to beat the levels. The first game I played was Super Mario World, awesome memories of playing it with my brother and sister. My sister's best friend at the time was also really into video games, she used to come over to our house and we would all play SNES. As we got older, we moved onto N64 and Playstation, also some great memories there. Then Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2. All three of us together. My parents never treated us differently based on our sex when it came to video games. I've grown up feeling that it's perfectly normal for girls to play games. Although my sis doesn't live with us anymore (actually she'll be staying with us for a while after she gets married this coming fall), my brother, sister, and I play video games whenever she comes home to visit. Nowadays we play PS3 and Xbox 360, though we sometimes play the classics. My sister plays all sorts of games as well. She is playing Skyrim right now, she has played Fallout, CoD zombies, Dragon Age, Minecraft, Mario Kart, just to name a few. She's lucky that she has fiance who's really in to gaming, she always has someone to talk to about games, and plus she has my brother and I. She always had people to talk about games when growing up as well. You know, I haven't really thought much about sexism in video games because it's always been normal to me that girls play games. Of course I've noticed obvious things like women with absurdly large boobs and stupid outfits in games like Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive, and Ninja Gaiden, but other than that, I haven't given the portrayal of women in games much thought. My sister never really talked about it either, I'll ask her next time she calls. You brought up some excellent points Monobrow, especially about how you imagine yourself as a male when playing fps games, I think that's interesting. One of my characters in Skyrim is female, and I've sometimes found myself subconsciously imagining that I'm still playing a male. Until she takes damage, then I remember. I'm so used to playing as men, it's sort of ingrained into me. I also hate when people say girls don't like fps's because of their sex. Women enjoy those types of games just as much as men, my sister is quite good at them. Thanks for talking about your gaming past, you've brought back some great memories of playing video games with my brother and sister.

We stop three insane internet killers, only to be faced with something even worse. I think we are only delaying the inevitable, it's only a matter of time before one of these things passes.

I'm not arguing semantics, you misunderstood the point of that post. That's not how statistics work. You can't interview every woman in the world, that's not practical. Statistics use a certain sample size to make a prediction about a population, the bigger the sample the better. If we had to ask every single person in a country or the world whenever we want valid evidence, statistics would be meaningless. EDIT: Yes, this doesn't really have much to do with the thread, but without evidence of some kind, the entire thread is just speculation. With each side repeating their viewpoints, getting nowhere. I guess we're already at that point.

Of course some women are bothered by sexism in video games. I don't think anyone here is saying the answer will never be because of sexism, read the posts again.

What counts as valid evidence? So just because many games don't appeal to women means they are automatically sexist? So when a movie or tv show appeals to women is that sexist?