Journalist Tells Game Industry To Grow Up
While the number of female gamers has been growing in past years the industry still remains largely a boys club and as such markets heavily towards men. This of course means a focus on things men have loved for years: guts, glory and girls. Just take a look at your average fantasy title and you’ll see burly sword-wielding barbarian men clad head to toe in platemail standing next to buxom ladies in armor that looks more like lingerie than actual protection.
That’s just one of the many juvenile traits that the gaming industry is often criticized for. At the GDC journalist Heather Chaplin took a shot at the industry, saying that as whole it needs to grow up. Many have defended gaming as a medium, citing its relative youth but Chaplin points out that in the same length of time film had gone far and was on the verge of producing classic film Citizen Kane and accuses video games of avoiding things that separate men from boys: responsibility, introspection, intimacy and intellectual discovery, the blame for which she lays at the feet of the developers, not the medium.