作者：Stephanie Carmichael

电子游戏一直忽略女性角色的潜能，只是把女性作为被拯救的公主或其他卑顺的角色。2013年是值得纪念的一年，许多经典的游戏女主角回归玩家们的视野：《古墓丽影》的Lara Croft继续展开她的个人冒险历程；《生化危机之无限》的Elizabeth证明她是一个得利的伙伴；《末日余生》的Ellie成为年轻女孩的骄傲等。所以，在女角色与游戏之间的关系上，我们也许看到了新方向。

女性角色为什么重要？就此问题，本文作者采访了上述游戏的开发者和其他开发者。在游戏中加入女角色可以体现游戏的多样性，这是我们应该追求的目标，但除了多样性，我们是不是忽略了其他更有意义的原因？Lara和Ellie的意义只是填补性别空档——为了吸引更广泛的受众和弥补一个不活跃的细分市场吗？

与性别有关吗？

当问及女角色对游戏的独特性有何作用时，一些开发者指出，当他们第一次想象游戏主角时，他们通常不会把主角设定为女性。

Dontnod Entertainment创意总监及联合创始人Maxime Moris表示：“我认为性别本身无所谓优势或劣势，我们当然不会抱着一定要把主角设定为女性这样的想法开始项目。同样地，不应该单纯地出于性别原因而认为男角色比女角色优越，反之也一样。”

要塑造一个经典的角色，关键是体现一些特征：能让人产生共鸣的性格特点、内心冲突和成长，等等。这些与角色的性别是什么是没有关系的。

Moris表示：“我们的玩家越来越聪明了，我们的媒体也越来越成熟了，尽管成长缓慢。电影和书籍中始终存在女角色，所以我们要做的只是把我们的玩家当作成熟的人，可以平等地认可女性和男性，性别与玩家在游戏世界中的体验深度和成就是完全无关的。”

不管人类体验如何超越性别障碍，Dontnod选择由女性作为主角的理由是：Nilin的性别为我们提供了另一种切入游戏故事的视角，让我们体验到我们通常感觉不到的方面。

“《Remember Me》围绕一个关于隐私和个人记忆的数字朋克（游戏邦：这是一种独特的科幻文学流派，作品通常与计算机、网络等高新技术有关，代表作有《黑客帝国》）故事展开的，非常不同于像‘体能强化’那类普通的数字朋克主题。为了进一步突显差异，我们决定启用女性角色。这是一个非常自然的过程。”

Moris阐明这不意味着女角色比男角色更适合这个主题。“我的意思是，数字朋克游戏通常以体能强化为主题，这意味着这类游戏往往以男性为主角。”

然而，Dontnod故意违背男性作为科幻题材中的主角和数字朋克的典型表现法这两条惯例。也许性别在剧情塑造中的作用比开发者愿意承认的更大。

新方向

以独立冒险游戏《Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery》为例，因为其象素风的画面，玩家很容易忽略游戏的主角Scythian其实是个女性。这是故意的。该游戏的设计师及开发者表示，他们选择在“合适的时机”揭露她的性别，这非常像《银河战士》系列中的Samus Aran，“她的态度也许比她的性别身份更重要。”

Scythian的性别也有一个历史原因。Adams解释道：“我们根据荷马的《伊利亚德》中提到的“亚马逊女王”的姐妹设定了这个角色，在铜器时代的波斯和塞西亚的考古记录中可以找到这个部落女战士的相关记载。Scythian存在于幻想的游戏世界中，但我们希望她能拥有历史现实中的灵魂和形象。”

他补充道：“她的故事回避了传统的强调动作的BOSS战，倾向于圣女贞德式的结局。以男性为主角当然也可以展开同样的冒险，但也许故事和氛围就没什么新意了。”

不过，Adams似乎不愿意详细解释这个想法。

情感联系

南宫万代这个月本土化的RPG《Tales of Xillia》为该系列引入第一个女性主人公。制作人Hideo Baba告诉我们，主角是什么性别很大程度上取决于游戏的剧情。虽然Xillia对女性玩家有吸引力，但“任何人都可能成为主角。”然而，有时候，确实存在着一种性别比另一种性别更合适的情况。

“我确实认为以男性为主角不能很好地传达某种情绪，如母亲与子女那种亲密无间的感情。无论是以女性还是以男性为主角，其优点是，玩家可以体验到另一种人生观。

“当玩家以相反的性别提供的新视角和价值观体验游戏时，他们会有完全不同的感受。说到底，最重要的并不是角色的性别，而是他们的人类本性。”

尽管，女性视角可能超越我们作为人类共享的经验。它不只是一种颠倒故事期待的方法。对于某些开发者而言，女性角色不仅代表女性，还能启发人们思考女性问题，有时候，甚至揭露更重大的问题。

因为女主角仍然罕见，Crystal Dynamics的Brian Horton是《古墓丽影》的美术总监，他认为“人们就会特别突出她们女性的身份，而男主角就不会被强调成‘男性’主角。”

他表示：“我们必须在游戏中塑造更多打破女性刻板形象的女角色。人们也许认为Lara作为游戏女主人公是很特殊的存在，但本可以不必这样的。我希望人们不再把以女性作为主角当成什么了不得或者特别的事。”

女性角色的普遍存在不只是为了打破人们的性别期待，还有助于与玩家建立更好的关系。《Zumba Fitness》系列的执行制作人Lisa Roth表示，开发者塑造女性的方式必须忠于现实。

“教Zumba舞蹈的人有男有女，男性和女性的身体是非常不同的，所以二者都应该在游戏中体现出来。女性舞者的存在表明女性也可以像男性一样精通这种舞蹈的技艺。”

也许玩家群体的需求是打破另一种刻板印象的答案：衣着华丽的“大波女”是为了迎合男性玩家，女性沦成没有权威不能自主的性对象。在《Zumba Fitness》中，女性是有实实在在的作用的，而不只是为了带动营销。

《末日余生》的创意总监Neil Druckmann描述了这样一个情景：游戏的女主角Ellie提出一个关于社会对女性和女孩的形象引导的问题。

“在游戏中，她看到一张海报上印着瘦成皮包骨头的女模特，于是对Joel说‘我认为你们的时代不缺吃的啊。’Joel对她解释道‘是的，但有些人就是为了好看才饿着自己的。’Ellie回答‘那太傻了，没道理啊。’所以她看到的媒体不是正常人看到的，你可以说，有些时候，媒体提供给我们的东西是病态的。”

他解释道：“问题是，故事充斥的这类信息太多了，你开始应接不暇。所以我认为还是要小心地处理的。”

性别为什么重要

Supergiant Games的写手Greg Kasavin很明确地指出，即将发行的回合制策略游戏《Transistor》的主角Red“就是我们的角色”。开发者并没有从性别方面来考虑这个角色。

但性别身份是很重要的，因为可以作为一个“接入点”。Kasavin认为，那是因为人们希望自己玩的游戏的角色与自己有所联系。

Kasavin解释道：“也就是说，我认为如果开发者从‘我们如何在游戏中加入女性角色’的立场来解决问题，他们其实已经走上歧路了，即使他们的初衷是好的。开发者应该想的是，怎么才能让角色变得有趣。角色是否有趣与这个角色是‘她’还是‘他’无关，但在更大的剧情情境下，角色的性别选择可能非常重要，可能是乐趣的一部分。”

Kasavin指出，强制体现多样性——性别、性取向或种族，“极有可能导致游戏变得非常虚伪或甚至侮辱人。”

他以自己最喜欢的Xbox游戏之一《The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay》为例。在这款游戏中，女性显然缺席——从来没有被提到或显示。

“我认为这是一个有意为之的艺术选择，并非出于无知或迟钝，而是考虑到游戏的独特基调和氛围。也许不加入女性的想法多少是有些无礼的，但我认为这种故意忽略性别的设定比那些把女性角色当成福利的射击游戏更诚实更有意义。”

开发者必须在为游戏世界创造“合适的角色”上花更多心思，他认为：“我们考虑得越周全，我们看到的角色就越有趣，其中许多角色将纯粹出于剧情需要而成为女性。”

性别提供新视角

《古墓丽影》的作者Rhianna Pratchett指出，情绪和反省并不会让女性角色显得脆弱，正如许多玩家对Lara Croft的看法。

“他们的论据是，因为在男性游戏角色通常不会有那样的举动，所以女性角色也不应该。”

这种思路揭露我们对女性的看法；也反映了人们对男性的刻板印象。Pratchett解释道：“我认为这更多的是一个过去我们表现男性的方法一直很狭隘的问题，而不是根据早已不存在的男性的标准来衡量女性角色的问题。”

“从男性玩家的反馈中，我们发现他们认为扮演Lara为自己看待女性提供了新视角——特别是在游戏中某个恶人对她进行性侵犯时。突然之间，男人们发现自己置身于一个他们在现实生活中不能体会的处境，而现实生活中的女性却可能经常遭遇那样的事。”

她总结道：“在一个阵营，人们说‘性别不重要’，在另一个阵营，人们说‘我们想要更多女主角/更好的女性表现法’显然，性别确实重要，即使我们希望它不重要。”

更大的问题

对于Loot Drop（前身是国际游戏开发者协会）的游戏设计师Brenda Romero和在微软中参与开发《Project Spark》的Kim McAuliffe来说，为游戏 体现女性角色而战是再熟悉不过的事了。

Romero指出：“这是一个你希望看到‘你自己在游戏中的形象’的问题。如果你在游戏中看到与自己接近的角色，你就有可能喜欢那款游戏。”

对于她们而言，游戏中是否加入女性角色其实也折射出游戏界的女性开发者的问题。Romero想起当她的角度曾经对游戏设计产生特殊的影响。

她回忆道：“当John Romero设计《Ravenwood Fair》时，我记得我玩完一个回合后，我完全没有归属感。简单地说，我根本没有办法保护角色免受怪物的伤害。我知道只要我不玩那游戏，就无所谓游戏中发生什么事，但那种失落的感觉仍然存在，足以影响我对游戏的喜爱程度。这种感觉是其他男性游戏测试员不能体会的。然而对于女性，这确实是一个大问题。”

他们想出一个解决办法：增加一个保护者系统，也就是当玩家离开游戏时，图腾会继续保护角色的安全。“如果他们感到害怕，玩家甚至可以安慰他们。这是一个微妙的设计改变，但非常重要，在这款游戏的所有设计中，这一点是她最欣赏的。”

McAuliffe认为游戏行业缺少女性员工也部分归咎于游戏对女性角色的表现法。她和Romero以前也讨论过这个问题。

“我在Twitter上说，当我还是孩子时，如果游戏提供女性角色，我就只玩女性角色。有人回复我说，他也只选择跟自己相同性别和人种的角色；如果有黑人选项，他就会选择黑人。所以我认为提供不同性别、人种的角色是很重要的，不是因为要遵循多样性的惯例，而是因为玩家希望自己花时间和感情培养的角色更贴近自己。这也使他们觉得自己受游戏待见，有归属感，这是他们继续游戏下去的动力。”

女性角色可能引入新视角，特别是如果开发者“乐意挖掘一般女性的生活到底是怎么样的”。这甚至可能为游戏设计提供新思路。

“我认为这对人们来说是非常开阔眼界的事。”

正如Romero指出的，女性开发者增加有助于拓宽游戏设计的视野。

“这个问题也不仅限于是否存在女性角色。根本问题不是加入女性角色为什么重要；而是忽略角色的性别、肤色、性向是很重要的。多样性、新颖性、新角度。让更多玩家觉得自己是受欢迎的，扩大‘传统的’玩家的范围。”

游戏的面貌正在变得更好，像Lara Croft这样的标志性角色已经摆脱性物品的地位，成为具有值得探索的视野的角色。然而，开发者必须更深入地思考为什么女性角色是重要的。开发者很容易想到诸如“多样性”和“营销”这样的词，认为女性角色除了增加对男性玩家的吸引力以外就没什么价值。而事实上，使用女性角色可以鼓励开发者创造新的玩法和创作更深刻的故事，使玩家对角色产生更深厚的感情，从新的角度看待彼此的生活。

更重要的是，我们在游戏中加入更多女角色，体现了我们的游戏行业对任何性别、种族或性向的开发者和玩家的包容。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Developers share why women characters matter beyond diversity

by Stephanie Carmichael

Video games have long neglected the potential of female heroes, instead putting women in princess or other subservient roles. We may be headed in a better direction, as 2013 has been a record year for memorable, well-developed female leads. Lara Croft made her comeback through a personal journey in Tomb Raider, Elizabeth proved herself a worthy ally in BioShock Infinite, and Ellie did young girls proud in The Last of Us.

GamesBeat talked to some of the developers of these games and more, asking what makes women characters important? Diversity is something we should strive for, but are we missing more compelling reasons for including them? Do Lara and Ellie only matter to fill the gender gap — to appeal to a wider demographic and counter narrow marketing assumptions?

Is gender irrelevant?

When asked what female characters bring to games that’s unique, some developers pointed out that, when they first imagined their lead character, they didn’t plan to make her female.

“I don’t think there are advantages or disadvantages per se, and we certainly didn’t start the project thinking we must have a female lead,” said Jean-Maxime Moris, the creative director and cofounder of Dontnod Entertainment, the developer of action-adventure game Remember Me. “In the same way male characters should not be seen as better than female ones based on the gender factor, female characters should not be seen as better based on that sole fact, either.”

Dontnod Entertainment

Concept art of Nilin from Remember Me.

The same qualities are important to both male and female characters: resonating personality traits, internal conflict and growth, and so on. The goal is to write a strong character regardless of sex or gender, he said.

“Our audience is smart, and our media is maturing, however slowly,” said Moris. “Movies and books have had female characters for decades and centuries, so what I am doing is just treating our audience as one made of mature human beings that can identify with females as much as males, gender being absolutely irrelevant to the depth of what human beings experience and achieve in the world.”

Despite how human experiences can surpass gender barriers, Dontnod chose to make its hero a woman for a reason: Nilin’s gender benefited the story by working to emphasize a perspective we don’t normally see.

“Remember Me revolves around a cyberpunk story of intimacy and personal memories, which is very different from more traveled cyberpunk themes like physical augmentation,” said Moris. “In order to mark that difference further, we decided to go for a female character. It was a very natural process.”

Moris clarified that this doesn’t mean female characters suit the theme better than their male counterparts. “I was saying that cyberpunk games generally revolve around body augmentation and suggesting the fact that they all tend to feature male characters.”

However, Dontnod deliberately chose to turn against the norm of both male leads in sci-fi roles as well as the typical expression of cyberpunk. Perhaps gender plays a bigger role in story creation than developers may be willing to admit.

New directions

Capybara Games/Superbrothers

The Scythian from Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery.

Take indie-adventure game Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery. Due to the pixel graphics, it’s easy to overlook that the lead character, the Scythian, is a woman. This was intentional. Designer Craig D. Adams and the staff at Superbrothers said that they chose to reveal her gender “when the time is right,” much like Samus Aran in the Metroid series, “whose gender identity is perhaps secondary to her attitude.”

The Scythian’s gender is also one of historical importance. “[She] is intended to be a sister-of-sorts to the ‘Amazon queens’ mentioned in Homer’s Illiad, a tribe of warrior women who we now know exist in the archaeological record in Bronze Age Persia and Scythia,” said Adams. “The Scythian exists in a world both whimsical and imagined, but we wanted it to have a soul and a texture grounded in this historical reality.”

He added, “The end of her story sidesteps the traditional action-packed boss battle in favor of a kind of cosmic Joan of Arc moment. A male character could have probably embarked on the same adventure, but perhaps the story and the tone would’ve ended up in a more traditional place.”

Adams was reluctant to expand on this idea, however.

Emotional connections

Namco Bandai

Concept art for Milla Maxwell in Tales of Xillia.

The role-playing game Tales of Xillia, which Namco Bandai localized in North America this month, introduces the first woman protagonist to the Tales series. Producer Hideo Baba told us that “much of what determines a character’s gender comes from the game’s story.” While Milla Maxwell appeals to the female crowd, “anyone can be a hero,” he said. However, sometimes one gender may be more appropriate.

“I do believe that there are specific emotions that cannot be depicted easily with male characters or not at all, such as the special bond a mother shares with her children. The unique benefit to both female and male characters is that the player can be provided a different outlook on life.

“There are discoveries to be made in different ways of experiencing new points of view and values these characters have toward the opposite gender. However, in the end, what’s most important is not the gender of the character but their human nature.”

The feminine perspective may reach beyond our shared experiences as human beings, though. It can also offer more than a means for historical accuracy or a way to reverse story expectations. For some developers, female characters not only serve to represent women but also inspire commentary on women’s issues. And sometimes, a larger message is at stake.

Demographics as a positive force

Because women leads are still rare, “a lot of weight is put on them as women,” said Brian Horton, the senior art director for Tomb Raider at Crystal Dynamics. “But male leads are not framed as ‘male’ heroes.”

He said, “It’s important to show more females break stereotypical roles in games. Lara may be unique in the game environment, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I hope we see a time when it’s not really a big deal to have a female lead and framed as something unique.”

A common presence of women as characters would provide for more than overcoming gender expectations. It could help build better relationships with an audience, too. Lisa Roth, the executive producer of the Zumba Fitness franchise at Majesco Entertainment, says the way the company portrays women must be faithful to reality.

“There are both men and women teaching Zumba classes around the world, and men’s and women’s bodies in motion are quite different visually, so it’s important to have both represented within our content,” she said. “Featuring women dancers shows the way a woman would perform a choreography versus how a man would handle it.”

Perhaps demographics are the answer to breaking another stereotype: the big-breasted, gorgeous character who’s proportionally compromised to suit the male gaze, where women become sexual objects with little power or authority of their own. As with Zumba Fitness, they could act as a gateway for learning to serve an audience instead of merely driving marketing decisions.

Naughty Dog

Ellie from The Last of Us.

Neil Druckmann, the creative director on The Last of Us at Naughty Dog, described one situation where Ellie’s presence in The Last of Us enabled the team to broach a topic relevant to women and girls in society.

“There’s a part in the game that’s a side conversation where she sees a poster of a really skinny model, and she talks to Joel about it,” said Druckmann. “She says, ‘I thought people in your time had plenty of food and all this stuff.’ And he explains to her, ‘Yeah, but some people just starve themselves for looks.’ And her remark is, ‘Well, that’s stupid, that doesn’t make sense.’ So she’s not exposed to the media that normal people are exposed to and, you could argue, in some cases corrupted [by it].”

He said, “The concern there is that you start getting heavy-handed, and the message becomes overwhelming to the story. So I think you always have to sneak that stuff in there.”

Why gender matters

Writer Greg Kasavin of Supergiant Games made it clear that Red, the main character of the upcoming turn-based strategy game Transistor, is “just our character.” The developer doesn’t think of her in terms of gender.
But gender identities are important as they can be an “access point,” Kasavin says, for people who want to play games with characters they can relate to.

Supergiant Games

“Cloudbank” piece by Supergiant art director Jen Zee.

“That said, I feel like if a developer approached the issue from a standpoint of ‘How can we include female characters in our game,’ they are already going about it in a creatively bankrupt way, even if it’s well intentioned,” said Kasavin. ”

Developers might be better off concerning themselves with why having interesting characters matters in the first place. A character’s gender in and of itself does nothing to make him or her interesting, but a character exists in a broader narrative context in which gender choices may be significant and may be part of the politics in an interesting way.”

Kasavin said that trying to force in diversity — of gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity — stands “a high risk of resulting in some very disingenuous or even insulting games.”

The writer pointed to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, one of his favorite Xbox games, as an interesting case study. In it, women are noticeably absent — and never mentioned or shown, either.

“I felt it was a deliberate artistic choice, not born of ignorance or insensitivity but rather a decision that was fully aligned with creating the game’s unique tone and atmosphere,” said Kasavin. “Maybe the idea of a game with no women in it is somehow offensive, but I found this sort of deliberate omission of gender to be much more honest and interesting than the typical shooter, with its gratuitous female briefing character or love interest.”

Developers need to put more thought into creating the “right characters” for their worlds, he said. “The more that happens, the more interesting characters I think we’ll see, many of whom will be women purely from narrative necessity.”

Gender provides insight

Emotion and introspection do not make female characters weak, as many people suspected of Lara Croft, said Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett.

Crystal Dynamics

Lara Croft from Tomb Raider in a difficult moment.

“The argument continued that because it’s not often shown in male games characters, it shouldn’t be in female ones,” she said.

That line of thinking reveals more than our views on women; it reflects on male stereotypes as well. “I think this is a more of a problem with the narrow way we’ve represented male characters in the past rather than an issue of judging all female characters by the standards of the males that have gone before,” said Pratchett.

“Some of the most profoundly gender-based feedback we got was from male players who said they’d been given a new insight into being female by playing as Lara — particularly when there was the brief threat of sexual assault from one of the enemies in the game,” she said. “Suddenly males found themselves put into a position they would be unlikely to experience in the real world but one that women are — sadly — only too familiar with.”

She said, “In one camp, you have people saying ‘gender shouldn’t matter.’ In the other, you have people saying, ‘We want more female leads/better female representation.’ So clearly, it does matter even if we’d rather it didn’t.”

A bigger problem

The fight for female representation is one that game designers Brenda Romero of Loot Drop (and formerly the International Game Developers Association) and Kim McAuliffe, who’s working on Project Spark at Microsoft, know all too well.
“It’s a question of wanting to see your reflection in a game,” said Romero. “If you feel like you’re represented there, you likewise feel welcome there.”

Loot Drop

Ravenwood Fair on Facebook.

For them, the inclusion of women as characters points to that of female developers. Romero recalled a moment when her perspective uniquely influenced a game’s design.

“When [id cofounder John Romero] was designing Ravenwood Fair, I remember feeling a lack of closure when I finished playing a session,” she said. “In a nutshell, it was because I couldn’t do anything to protect the characters from the creatures in the forest who were out to get them. I knew that nothing happened in the game while I wasn’t playing it, but still, the feeling persisted and was enough to affect my enjoyment of the game. It was not a feeling he had nor any of the male testers of the game. Among women, however, it was an issue.”

They settled on a solution: a protector system in which totems kept the characters safe when players left the game. “If they got scared, players could even comfort them,” she said. “It was a subtle design change, but a big one, and of all the design in that game, it remains one of the things he is most complimented for.”

McAuliffe believes that the lack of women in development roles stems from female representation in games. She and Romero have spoken about the problem before.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s Project Spark.

“Someone approached me on Twitter about my statement that as a kid, I would only play as the female character if there was one available,” said McAuliffe. “He said it was the same for him and race; if there was a black character option, he would always pick it. So I believe it’s important to have character options that are diverse in gender, orientation, and race not for the sake of diversity as a principle but because people long to identify with the games and characters they are investing their time and lives in. It also makes them feel welcomed by the game, like they belong, which is key to continuing to play and growing up to be part of the industry.”

Women characters have the power to introduce new perspectives, she said, especially if the developer “is willing to dig into what life is really like for the average woman.” That could even lead to new approaches to game design.

“I think game scenarios like this would be very eye-opening for people.”

As Romero pointed out, more female developers could help open the doors to these perspectives.

“It also isn’t limited to female characters,” said McAuliffe. “The real question is not why having female characters could be important; it’s why having characters that aren’t buff, white, close-cropped, stubbly, heterosexual men could be important. Variety. Freshness. New perspectives. Making a wider audience feel welcomed, and broadening the horizons of the ‘traditional’ gamer.”

The face of video games is changing for the better, with icons like Lara Croft evolving from sex objects to characters with perspectives worth exploring. However, developers need to think harder about why female characters matter. It’s easy to get caught up in terms like “diversity” and “marketing” and imagine little value beyond a broader appeal, but they’re important to more than demographics. Their presence encourages developers to discover new gameplay designs and stories with purpose, allows them to create deeper emotional experiences with both male and female characters, and gives us insight into each other’s lives.

Most importantly, the more female characters we bring into games, the more we’ll open the industry to developers and gamers of any gender, race, or sexuality.(source:venturebeat)