User:Jordangentry/sandbox

Im planning on editing the section of female characters as antagonists mainly and then going through the article to check for minor changes and citations.

As Antagonists

There is one flaw to the view of women being antagonists; there are already so many strong female lead characters. It bears mentioning that there are already some admirable female game characters. Along with the new Croft, Alice of the horror game Alice: Madness Returns, Chell from the sci-fi game Portal, Heather Mason of the survivor-horror Silent Hill 3, and Jade, a photojournalist in the action-adventure Beyond Good and Evil, are all laudable heroines. These female leads may not be seen as actual heroes but the opposite. They are strong villain leads that still represents women as a main aspect to a video game.

Supporting Characters

Although these characters are vital to the games listed, there is still major underrepresentation in other aspects of the programming within games. In 2014 the failure of the game Assassin's Creed: Unity to include playable female characters in its multiplayer mode, purportedly because they would have been too difficult to animate, aroused significant anger.

Women are usually seen as submissive characters. Shanon Sherman mentioned how the illustrations on video game covers and portrayed women in need of rescue. She stated that these covers reinforce the existing gender stereotypes and sexual discrimination against women.

Jeroen Jannsz and Raynel G. Martis conducted research on the representation of gender within video games and of the 12 games that were examined, there were 22 characters to look at. Two games did not have a second or supporting character in the introductory film: Splinter Cell focused exclusively on protagonist Sam Fisher, and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness focused exclusively on Lara Croft. The analysis showed a dominance of male characters in the games. Thirteen of 22 game characters (about 60%) were men. Among the leading characters there was an equal gender distribution (six men; six women), but supporting characters turned out to be seven men (70%) and three women (30%). A difference appeared between characters who had a leading part in the game and those in a supporting role. Jannsz and Martis stated that there is a depiction of a lead role being in a commanding position and the narrative being about them. This is consistent with masculinized traits such as leadership and independence that may be given to female characters along with sexualized attributes so they are "sexy" and appealing.

Marketing/Preferences

On average, female-led games sell fewer copies than male-led ones, but also have lower marketing budgets. It is important to test the conditions under which gender representation predicts game sales. Adolescents who played video games frequently showed decreased concern about the effects that games with negatively stereotyped images may have on the players' attitudes compared to adolescents who played games infrequently or not at all. Those who play video games frequently compared to those who don’t have different views when it comes to an opinion on gender representation in the video games they play.

Work Cited

'''FERGUSON, C. (2015, December 11). Video-Game Heroines Can Kick Sexism’s Butt. Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. B14–B15. Retrieved from    http://proxy.libraries.smu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t =true&db=a9h&AN=111469977&site=ehost-live&scope=site'''

This article is about the representation of female characters as an antagonist. It also goes into how there are already strong female leads that have paved the way. This is important for my research because it has to do with women being a hero and seen as strong contrary to familiar belief. I’m using this to give proof that women characters are seen as strong and can be the lead.

'''Alexandra Henning, Alaina Brenick, Melanie Killen, Alexander O'Connor, & Michael J. Collins. (2009). Do Stereotypic Images in Video Games Affect Attitudes and Behavior? Adolescent Perspectives. Children, Youth and Environments, 19(1), 170-196. Retrieved            from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.19.1.0170 '''

This study examined adolescents' attitudes about video games along with their self-reported play frequency. They range from those who play frequently to infrequently. This article is authoritative because it is research that was conducted with 361 subjects of adolescents who are more likely to be of the age to play video games. Also, this is a from the database, JSTOR, which has all reliable sources and academic journals. I used this in my project to show how frequent games are actually played and what types of games adolescents lean toward.

'''Jansz, Jeroen, and Raynel G. Martis. “The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female Characters in Video Games.” Sex Roles, vol. 56, no. 3-4, 2007, pp. 141–148.,        doi:10.1007/s11199-006-9158-0.'''

This article has to do with female being strong protagonists in video games. Lara Croft was the start of the movement of a strong female role and it has continued ever since. This is a peer reviewed article, so it is authoritative and trustworthy for this project. Race was also a apart of this article but I focused more on the gender aspect for the sake of the topic of my wiki article. I used this to see how well women are really represented and when and how the role of being seen as strong came about.

'''Near, C. (2013). Selling Gender: Associations of Box Art Representation of Female Characters            With Sales for Teen- and Mature-rated Video Games. Sex Roles, 68(3–4), 252–       269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0231-6 '''

This article has to do with sales of video games when it comes to gender. Also, it examines the art on the box that is advertised to customers. This is an authoritative article because it examined multiple covers and discovered how many were sold compared to male lead games. This article is from EBSCO Host which is another database from SMU that have all reliable resources and academic journals. I used this article in m project to add to the marketing section on how video games sell if a male or a female is the main character.

'''Sherman, S. (1997). Perils of the Princess: Gender and Genre in Video Games. Western            Folklore, 56(3/4), 243-258. doi:10.2307/1500277'''

This article has to do with patterns when it comes to gender representation in video games. It contains information on how women are seen as princesses in peril in need of saving or are exploited as sexual characters. This is an academic journal from EBSCO Host which is a reliable database we have access to through SMU. These journals are academic journals and contain relevant and trustworthy information. This article will help me with information regarding female characters being seen as weak and in need of saving. This is a common  role for women and will help to see how often it actual occurs.