Wednesday 25 January, 2012

During today's 30 minute play session, I decided I wanted to run a little test on possible sexism programmed into the game. As I covered in my last post, there ARE some pretty typical sexist comments mad during game-play (cop telling me to "stop running like a girl", etc.). But I made a rather odd observation; in absence of a gun, the women seem to fight back more often than the men when provoked. The only reason I say this is odd is because of how men and women are portrayed in the game. It seems like the men are more often than not trying to be tough or intimidating while the women are rather dainty and helpless looking. This observation led me to run a little in-game test. I decided to walk up and punch 10 females and 10 males (all on separate occasions with no wanted level and no weapons), and take note of who fought back. The victim of the punch is disqualified from the statistics if they pull out a weapon, or call upon the help of others. The overall results are actually kind of humorous I think. 5/10 men fought back, while 6/10 women fought back. The stats are too close to say that there developer meant to make a statement or anything, but it's kind of funny that more women stepped up and went toe-to-toe with a ripped thug than the men did. The rest of my play time was devoted solely to slaughter and jet-packing/parachuting off of high places. I just can't help myself.

Interesting, I hadn't looked at that before. My guess is that the reactions (who fights back) are gender neutral, which is quite something (given the rest of the context of the game). However, I wonder if your reputation level matters in any way?