Did a bit of digging back through the archives to find my old argument for this... (was in response to a question the BBC posed on this). I apologise in advance for any sarcasm, and if I step on anyones toes at any point in this post ._.
Maybe I've misinterpreted it, but when I looked at the various articles on the BBC's site the broadcast suggested, it seems to indicating that more 'games should have a female character inserted into them to instantly make them more appealing to "girl gamers".'
Yes, because that would work [/sarcasm]. That's the impression I got, but regardless of whether that's what they're really getting at, I wanted to bring it up... since I don't know about you, but I find a major issue with that logic. Inserting a playable female character into say, your typical FPS seems pretty pointless to me, since from what I've seen, the females who enjoy that genre don't usually feel the need for a female character, they're perfectly find playing as a dude (for various reasons, from not wanting to face the cry of T!TS OR GTFO to just not being bothered about it). And that leads me rather long-windedly to the main thing that's been bothering me: Do females really need female characters to enjoy 'hardcore' games to the full? Do things need to change?
Now, I'm not exactly your 'typical' female, but I know what my answer to that is. Presumably that logic is based around the thought that females are able to connect better with female characters, and thus the experience will be more immersive for us/them... but to be honest, the only times I've ever felt I couldn't properly connect with a male protagonist is when they were engaging with female NPCs. More specifically, when they were flirting and so on, for obvious reasons. But even then, actions on the more loving/caring/romantic/fraternal end of the spectrum don't pull me out of the experience at all, things like that don't stop me from empathising with the male character.
And then during fighting/battling... it's just a game, and I find the gender of the character matters little when you're in the middle of beating the crap out of enemies... when horde of them are coming at you I find I have much more important things to concentrate on than what equipment the character has in their pants (to put it bluntly), you know, like not being killed by the enemies for one.
Besides, I'm a big believer in the fact that games great because they are windows to experiences you could never have in real life... and for females, when it actually comes up in gameplay, seeing the world through the eyes of a dude is one of them.
I'm aware it doesn't excuse the fact that there's still a good proportion of games that have rather stereotypical female NPCs, and the fact that a few more female protagonists certainly wouldn't do anyone any harm... misskitten, you make a good point about that. However, I repost this just to bring up some of the positives that can come from having male protagonists and to point out that there are a good number of cases where having a female option would be unnecessary, and wouldn't really add anything to the game. I assume this is one of the reasons why there aren't that many female protagonists- because to developers it's more effort that it's worth. As I mentioned, the lack of a female option does not always alienate a section of the audience, it depends of the genre of the game, because often (allow me to make a rather broad statement) the people who think the game requires a female option in order for them to be able to enjoy that game fully are often the section of the audience that game would not appeal to in the first place, regardless of whether you can pick the gender of the player character. In those cases the argument that the game would appeal to a larger audience if it had a female option is rather null-and-void (as per the example above). I'm aware that isn't always the case with every person or every game, but point remains that it quite frequently
is the case, and it's something to think about if you're ever tempted to say "Developers should do, or else they are alienating half their audience". As touched on in the quote above, there are various genres (any of the more action/gameplay driven ones) where a female option is unnecessary, and irrelevant to the amount of enjoyment a player gets out of a game- and in some online FPS circles where female players may wish to conceal their gender and not stand out from the guys, a female option could actually detract from enjoyment should players choose to use it because it can be a magnet for harassment. (Of course, that's not technically the fault of the female option and more the fact there's some rather sexist players out there, and I'm aware that you don't
have to take advantage of the option just because it's there... but if no one is going to take advantage of it why should developers bother putting it in? Answer: they often don't.)
In the end, althought it's unfair Developers
are in it for the money, and burly men and curvy women sell, so that's what they're gonna make. Remember the saying saying: Sex Sell. Even so, at the same time it's also in their best interests to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, in order to make more sales. Developers do know what they are doing, and they've probably considered all of this a lot more than what many people seem to give them credit for. They already understand to some extent where to draw the line... for example, a lot of RPGs do offer the option to play as a female, because RPGs tend to be a lot more story driven, and thus the player's emotions towards the characters and the situations come into play a lot more. Because of this, it's a lot more likely for the player to encounter emotional dissonance with the character if they are of opposite genders, and developers realise this, and so it makes sense for them to put in the extra effort to design and e.g. record voices for a wider range of protagonists, and tweak the narrative (when not done properly, it can end up clunky) in order to make sure more players have as good an experience with their game as possible. However, in games that are more action oriented, you'll find the female option is a lot less common, since in games that
are action oriented the player is less likely to experience emotional dissonance with the character (because of their gender, at least), because the player is too engaged in the action to notice (as I put rather bluntly above). And so developers have noticed there isn't much point spending extra money adding a feature that won't help them shift a significant amount more copies of their game.
That doesn't mean they've got the line in exactly the right place yet, and it doesn't mean that they couldn't do with a little work in regards to the portrayal of female characters. It'd be nice if they'd be a little more daring and have another genuine female protagonist one in a while, just for the sake of it, without them having to factor in how it would affect their sales first. My apologies if I'm going over something you, the reader, already knows, but I'm just pointing out that there is in fact method to it, and there is genuine reasoning behind why they don't always give the option for females. It isn't that developers are just being thoughtless and/or sexist (at least, not all the time :\ ).
Final point: I do still sometimes get emotional dissonance in some more story-driven games with female protagonists, and not because female isn't realistic but because I just don't agree with what they're doing/saying/thinking. Changing the gender of character doesn't solve that though, that's usually just bad writing XD