New argument then, I think the advertisement is geared towards the readership of the specific magazine in question, with emphasis and spin to suit. I would argue should the readership of “femainist weekly” be large enough to target with advertisement then the game is deep enough to produce a suitable advertisement / article that would suit that readship.

That doesn’t get round the viscous circle of women not gaming (in general) as games are not targeted at them, and games not being targeted at them because they don’t game. This I think can only be overcome by evolution rather than revolution

You touch on this on the 3rd paragraph, but then that out of the way proceed to rip into them

I’m also not sure how “plain jane” describes any of the female NPCs in Dragon Age. Paticularly since most of them are *very specifically* modeled on … well … professional models.

Male – latin male, ginger, stringtop
Female – latin male, ginger, weightlifting hulk.

So they are giving diverse options that include homosexual options, as well as ’straight’ options.

If I had to classify the women, I would say they have gone for ‘plain jane’, ‘mother’ and ’sex object’ as broad steriotypes, which given just 3 choices is I believe a reasonable spread.

Its also for example the first game that I can remember that has a mentally handicapped character as a fairly major character you interact with, and its not done for cheap laughs either.

I think each has a background and story that is reasonable, and while I do like this blog (can’t play WoW right now due to poor quality connection in the country I currently work in) I still read this blog as I find it funny and entertaining, I would suggest you actually play the game, or at least talk to those who have before judging it further.

Oh if it matters at all regarding my comments, I am male.

1) Contrary to what Joss Whedon might want you to believe, lesbianism is not implicitly empowering. Lesbian options in CRPGs aren’t there to appeal to gay women, they’re there to appeal to straight men.

2) The men don’t look like they’re models. Not at all. Yes neither of them are fat or ugly, but the warriors in the group actually look like they could lift a sword. Unless you count Zhevran, who looks like a *fetish* model and is quite explicitly teh ghey.

3) It’s not a question of whether there are hot women in the game, it’s a question of why the game was advertised in Maxim with a spread specifically devoted to looking at the hot babes, but curiously there was no parallel article in any women’s magazine. And before you say “that’s the fault of the magazine” yes, yes it is. It’s all part of the same problem.

Sexism? No. Sexual appeal? Yes.

(PS, the males show more skin if you take their clothes off – their boobs are also completely exposed. The horror 11!!1)

1 – I never called feminists bad or evil.

2 – Not cool to bash another blogger in your comments and put words in their mouth.

Sadly I don’t think it’s an attempt to appeal to the “mainstream”. The sad fact is that most gamers really do believe that “tits and blood” is the same thing as “maturity”.

And of course, there’s an extent to which a genuinely “mature” game would be really dull:

“It was a time of great darkness and terrible wonder, a time when heroes stood up and resolved their disputes peacefully without resorting to unnecessary violence”.

… yeah. “Mature”.

It’s been speculated that the marketing campaign is an attempt to reach a more “mainstream” audience since CRPGs are somewhat of a fringe thing. The argument is: “Well, the old CRPG and Bioware fans will (likely) buy Dragon Age anyway, so why not try luring in men who don’t normally go for this sort of game but like hot bitches and bloodshed?” But the marketing has annoyed a good deal of the old fans, I think, and the new target audience may be put off despite the copious gore and naked tits when they see Dragon Age is a tactical squad-based game with pause and play, not a twitchy clickfest for bunnyhoppers.

And yeah, ugh. Scrawny female characters are always near the top of my annoyance list, I like my melee types (as PCs and NPCs) and I want them to LOOK the part. I generally don’t give a crap about “pretty”, I want “competent” and “fitting her story and role”. (Likewise, men who look like they’ve been fed nothing but steroids since conception are equally stupid. Hello, Wow!)