Published by Zabimaru on 29 Sep 2008
Examples of Favorite Nerdy Girls – Part 2: Video Games
Video games have always been plagued by the fact that people write what they know.
Writing what you know is usually a good thing, but the custom did somewhat hinder the development of interesting female figures in video games. Not to overly stereotype, but for most of the history of video game development, the developers have been men with a high probability of being single. So the developers haven’t had all that much knowledge about women, so there just haven’t been very many female characters, and the ones that have been have tended to be very boring stereotypes.
History of Video Games – From Bad to Better
For much of video game history women mainly appeared in the role of the helpless damsel in distress, like for instance Princess Peach from the Super Mario-games. The girl was nothing more than a plot device; a MacGuffin to search for, to keep the game moving forward, with little or no personality of their own.
Princess Peach - Professional Damsel in Distress
After that came many appearances of an opposite stereotype; the violent, buxom vixens. While the damsel in distress type of character is cute, innocent and helpless, the violent vixens are always overtly sexy, scantily clad and very effective killing machines. They are usually just as two-dimensional and boring as their helpless counterparts.
Vinyl Goddess from Mars - No, really