Okay, internet. It's time. After my talk at GaymerX2 on fat characters, and after hearing the folks at Gearbox give their own talk on inclusivity in design, I decided I really wanted to write something about one of the NPCs in Borderlands 2, a Gearbox title. Her name is Ellie, and she's a big lady mechanic.… Continue reading On Ellie
Category: Gendered gaming
She’s Got the Look
So Bryce Mainville wrote a short piece last week about suggestions for overhauling the design of Street Fighter 4's main cast. It's a quick read, and not all that controversial; most of the suggestions are relatively mild changes, but I found the entire post thought-provoking and wanted to elaborate on my thoughts on the subject in general,… Continue reading She’s Got the Look
Femme Fatalism
This morning I asked on Twit-ar if people would be interested in hearing some discussion on The Wonderful 101's "Wonder Pink" character, which I knew comparatively little about until Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency fame who mentioned it last night on Twitter: https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/365253940587151360 She then linked to the "intro" video for the character that gives her… Continue reading Femme Fatalism
Dress for Success
Alright I promised I'd leave this alone but someone made a really great comment on that last post and I'm somewhat afraid that it might not get read. Plus it's actually a somewhat different line of thinking from the "FF is dead (to me and only me)" line of thinking. Plus it's a reason for… Continue reading Dress for Success
Tropes vs Women in Chinese Historical Fiction (Also Games)
Warning: I try to make things non-referency as possible but some fluency with the broad-scale events of the Three Kingdoms novel will be very helpful interpreting this post's specifics. Alright, so I'm actually a big Dynasty Warriors series fan. Almost all the Musou games, actually; the exception is Hokuto no Ken Musou ("Fist of the North Star") and Troy Musou which… Continue reading Tropes vs Women in Chinese Historical Fiction (Also Games)
Reach Out to A Particular Contextual Version of the Truth
Right so last night Riot Games researcher and smart guy Davin Pavlas and I had a discussion about Kanji Tatusmi, one of the main characters of Persona 4. Specifically we discussed some of the ways in which his personal story is interpreted along both sexual orientation and gender presentation lines, and along the way I aired a… Continue reading Reach Out to A Particular Contextual Version of the Truth
Lolicon Chainsaw
So, I'm currently working on a bunch of different writing projects, attempting to get some articles out the door. While this one is a bit far off, I wanted to get some of my thoughts about it out there, especially since one of the games involved -- Lollipop Chainsaw -- is relatively new. Strike while the… Continue reading Lolicon Chainsaw
Bio-aware
A very small post for you -- a number of people at PCA who came to our gender and sexuality in Bioware games panel asked if I would send them the slides from my talk on same-sex romance options. (Those links will probably be broken in about a month! Enjoy them while you can!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS83e65LMp8#t=01m46s Anyhow, I… Continue reading Bio-aware
Oh, come on, now!
Extremely minor Mass Effect 3 spoilers follow. Bioware. You people, let us chat. Long time listener, first time caller. Love your work, have even devoted some of my professional research time to one of your creations (Dragon Age 2). Enjoy the Mass Effect series a whole bunch. Am even a SW:TOR subscriber. So I've established my credentials as… Continue reading Oh, come on, now!
The Yin and Yang of Enthusiasm
So as you may know, I have an interest in competitive video games and their player cultures. Today Travis George of Riot Games gave a postmortem of the new Dominion play mode they added to League of Legends in 2011. I thought he gave a really great presentation, but the takeaway for me was what… Continue reading The Yin and Yang of Enthusiasm