[Aegis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by C Elegans In Asia, girls play more video games than boys, and this is also visible in the marketing of games. In China for instance, there are much more games around that have female action- and warriors as protagonists in the game, than in Europe.

I would definitly argue that as a point for attracting female gamers. If anything, I would say that does more to advertise to male gamers, especially when considering the image and appearance of these femme fatales. Though they may be wearing more clothing than the typical female video game personality if they are the hero, they are more often than not still shapely, and oozing of attempted sex appeal. A classic example is Tomb Raider. Eido's said that Lara Croft was a female hero which girls and women could probably feel more connected with because of the gender. Yet, Lara Craft has become a sex symbol in gaming.

The same became true with Draken, and to a lesser extent, the recently released PErfect Dark: Zero for the Xbox 360. Even in games in which you can choose gender (I'll mostly cite the star wars games), how often to do you hear about players choosing the female skin because they 'like the view'. Hell, I've even seen Fable make similar, albeit more veiled, comments of that nature in regards to the female characters of games, and he's probably one of the more gender neutral people around on these boards.

You see the same thing arise in MMO's in which male players will play a female character, for both visual, and gameplay bonus's they say.

The only game advertising I ever see geared towards the female gender are often games like that would never appeal to the male gamer in the least. Everything else oozes too much sex appeal for it to not be geared for the male audience.