Sunday, August 9, 2015

LOST GIRLS: 9 Forgotten Game Heroines Who Deserve Another Chance

Good News! The first six episodes of the new show (and with the six for IN BOB WE TRUST) were part of a trial-run for both franchises with ScrewAttack. And because of viewers' enthusiastic reception, both series will now continue into 2016. So, thank you all :)



One thing I want to make clear about this episode: The goal here is not to try and say that gaming has no "women problem." It does, and to a certain degree always has (in the sense that the whole of human culture pretty-much "always has.") However, I do find myself on the other side of the argument that holds the current state of representation in gaming and gamer-culture (abysmal) as some kind of logical progression from the early days.

Gaming isn't in the place it is (bad) regarding these issues because Princess Peach got kidnapped a lot. She did, and that's not great, but in those same decades strong female characters existed in a much greater prominence than history tends to remember. We're not here as the end-result of some built-in flaw that was in gaming from the beginning, we're here because the course of the medium's development was derailed (and indeed set back) by a decade of pandering to a singular bro-gaming market demo.

The call for greater representation now (whether all of those making the call realize it or not) isn't so much a cry for radical change as it is (in many respects) for restoration.