Gamer Girl Heroes

While checking out a gaming blog in my spare time, I came across a post about a father who enjoyed playing games with his daughter, specifically old school Donkey Kong. The mission of Donkey Kong is the standard "male hero saves princess from bad guy" situation. According to the story, the daughter asked her father if she could be the princess, and save Mario. Unfortunately, as with most old school games, there was no option to play as the female character. "She's played as Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally just assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game; she seemed really bummed out by that." What's a dad (or mom) to do in this situation? If you're the parent in question, you hack the game to make the Princess a playable character, and make your daughter happy.
dad hacks Donkey Kong

I thought I had read this story before: turns out this isn't the first time a parent has had to hack a game for their disappointed daughter. Another dad hacked the game The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker for his daughter, changing all of the male pronouns to female, essentially making hero Link a girl. Per the dad, "I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero and rescue their little brothers."
Zelda hacker's blog with instructions
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/08/father-flips-links-gender-to-make-his-daughter-the-heroine/


The dads in these situations get that their daughters want to be the hero, and surely these girls aren't the first. Unfortunately most parents aren't programmers or hackers, and cant change Link to Laura on a whim. The gaming industry keeps churns out games "for girls" about princesses and fashion and puppies, while their male counterparts get to be the hero and save the princess. Why has the gaming industry been so reticent to offer girls alternatives? Why does gaming culture react so negatively to the idea of including women and girls (and minorities and homosexuals, etc.) The answer is two-fold: privilege and othering. Gaming (console, computer and otherwise) has been coded as "male." Therefore, women clearly don't play games, and if they do, they are a minority and asking to be included is asking for special privilege, since the "male" is the standard. In countless articles about women in gaming, the comments sections read, "Why can't they just play as the male character?" "They shouldn't have to change the whole game to include women." "Why don't women make their own games?" and my favorite "The majority of gamers are men. Companies are going to cater to them. That's just the way it is." Male gamers, and males in general, are rarely asked to check their privilege. To do so is seen as a personal affront to them.

Male gamers are so used to having games and gaming paraphernalia marketed towards them that the mere request for inclusion by women and others is greeted with hostility, to put it lightly. When sxg blogger fave Anita Sarkeesian started a Kickstarter fund to examine tropes vs women in games, communities like 4chan began harassing her, hacking her site, even raising money to fund a game where you punch her in the face till she's bloodied. Needless to say, this caused much controversy in the gaming world.Other women who have spoken about women in games have been threatened with violence and rape, and have had their addresses posted online.

Gaming companies haven't been much help either. I have been playing games since childhood, and while there are better alternatives for girls, the majority of games being produced still follow the "buff dude saves princess/girlfriend/sister/whatever" formula. Zelda and Princess Peach have been getting kidnapped since I was about 5, you would think they would have hired bodyguards by now or something. Peach was first introduced in 1985, and didn't get her own stand alone game till 2006, a short, fairly easy platformer where Peach gets her powers from her emotions. Mario gets to fly and stomp on things, Peach gets PMS and cries. If female characters are included, they are usually sexualized in some manner, and gender differences are highlighted (tight outfits, body armor that covers very little, armor designed to show that the character has breasts). Often they are secondary characters and sometimes even non playable.Games like Massive Effect have included female characters as a default from the get-go, but even in that case the female characters were largely absent from the marketing materials.

There need to be more options for girls (and boys, and men and women) to see female characters in positions of power and not just helpless girls needing to be saved. Gamers need to examine why the very idea of inclusion makes them react so negatively. I would think having more options would appeal to more people and make for a better gaming experience. Anyone have any similar experiences with kids and how have you dealt with it? Favorite female characters?