Even Teenage Boys Think Women Are Over-Sexualized in Games

[Benny the Ball]

http://www.themarysue.com/even-teenage- ... -in-games/

Survey Shows Even Teenage Boys Think Women Are Over-Sexualized in Video Games

The ONE group sexist people bank on to back them up.
by Dan Van Winkle Thursday, July 9th 2015 at 5:02 pm

Dubious game developers and Twitter trolls will now have to look elsewhere for backup when it comes to telling us “SJWs” that there’s nothing wrong with the portrayal of women in video games. A survey found that most teenage boys—despite common wisdom to the contrary—don’t want women to be over-sexualized in their video games.

I’ll let you take a minute to readjust your entire worldview.

Frequently, when people (frequently us) complain that women in video games are heavily subjected to the male gaze to the point where it becomes harmful, a defense that crops up is, “But our audience for this product is young men/teenage boys. We’re just playing to our audience.” Setting aside how silly it is to purposefully target a potentially gender-neutral product specifically at one gender—and how deciding that certain things are “for girls” and “for boys” is a problem all in itself—that’s making a pretty big assumption about what that audience even wants. And it turns out the assumption is certainly making an ass out of someone.

In a survey of 1,400 middle and high school students by Rosalind Wiseman, Charlie Kuhn, and Ashly Burch, of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’?, it turned out that of boys who identified as gamers, 55% said games should have more women as protagonists, and 57% felt women were treated as sex objects too often in games. Teenage boys. So all the grown-ass men on the Internet screaming about their toys being taken away just because we’d like a bit more consideration shown toward women in games might want to take a step back and realize they could get a lesson in maturity from teenagers.

Wiseman shared some more interesting statistics from the survey on Time, writing,

Both boys and girls aren’t more likely to play a game based on the gender of the protagonist

70% of girls said it doesn’t matter and 78% of boys said it doesn’t matter. Interestingly, boys care less about playing as a male character as they age and girls care more about playing as a female one.

She also noted that her results showed girls play a variety of different game genres, whether or not some people want to believe that over half of gamers being women is only because of all our moms playing Farmville—as though that somehow make them lesser gamers anyway. The group behind the survey has stressed that it was only intended to be exploratory and not a completely thorough evaluation, but the findings are pretty encouraging.

Maybe there is hope for the next generation of gamers after all.

(via Destructoid)

And here's the Time article referred to above that goes into more detail on the survey (accompanying video in the link)

Everything You Know About Boys and Video Games Is Wrong

Rosalind Wiseman July 8, 2015

Here's what they really think about how women are portrayed on screen

Kids are fed up with Kate Upton.

When the ads for Game of War started showing up on my students’ phones last year—they haven’t stopped—many were annoyed. They hated that it was impossible to close the ad, forcing them instead to watch the video until the end. But what really irritated them was Ms. Upton, in a full-cleavage-baring white flowing dress. The ads are clearly effective for some, but the message is obvious: Game of War is a boys’ game, and Upton is the game’s mascot, walking through battles totally unscathed and doing nothing except looking pretty.

Action games with big battles like Game of War are incredibly exciting to kids. And kids I’ve worked with, both male and female, will put up with a lot to play exciting games. But it doesn’t mean they like the way women are portrayed. Yet the video game industry seems to base much of its game and character design on a few assumptions, among them that girls don’t play big action games, boys won’t play games with strong female characters, and male players like the sexual objectification of female characters.

You can guess what the results are: a gaming landscape that thrusts a hyper-sexualized depiction of women onto the phone, computer and TV screens of millions of boys and girls.

MORE What Boys Really Want

The issue of sexism in video games, long simmering, is sure to bubble up again during the Comic-Con convention this weekend in San Diego. (47% of attendees are expected to be women.) In collaboration with my colleagues, Charlie Kuhn and gaming expert Ashly Burch, we surveyed more than 1,400 middle and high school students from throughout the country last year. We asked them to tell us what they thought about gender representation in games, what games girls play, and more. Our survey was exploratory—we didn’t have the resources to conduct a thorough evaluation—but we believed it was an important issue to study and hope others will follow.

Here are three things we found that may surprise.

Boys believe female characters are treated too often as sex objects

47% of middle school boys agreed or strongly agreed, and 61% of high school boys agreed or strongly agreed. “If women are objectified like this it defeats the entire purpose of fighting,” Theo, an eighth-grader who loves playing Mortal Kombat, told us. “I would respect the [female] character more for having some dignity.”

Both boys and girls aren’t more likely to play a game based on the gender of the protagonist

70% of girls said it doesn’t matter and 78% of boys said it doesn’t matter. Interestingly, boys care less about playing as a male character as they age and girls care more about playing as a female one.

Girls play a variety of game genres

26% played first-person shooter games like Call of Duty and HALO, 36% played role-playing games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, and 17% played sports games like FIFA and Madden. (19% did not play games, compared to 3% of boys.)

We also asked kids if they identified as “gamers.” Especially in light of the “Gamergate” controversy that erupted last year and revealed intense sexism among some self-identified gamers, would the young people who identified as gamers share any of these sentiments? But very few of our respondents knew what Gamergate was and they had very different responses from what one may expect: 55% of boys who identify as gamers think there should be more female heroes in games, and 57% believe that female characters are too often treated as sex objects.

This all matters because gaming has become an important part of our culture, and it’s sending the wrong message onto our boys’ and girls’ sceens. Our kids deserve better. And it’s what they want.

Rosalind Wiseman is the author of Masterminds and Wingmen (Harmony Books, 2013) as well as Queen Bees and Wannabes (Harmony Books, 2002)

Just goes to show that plenty of teenage gamer boys don't fit the dudebro stereotype, and can even be a lot more mature and enlightened than some adult gamers.

[ArmorPierce]

What's the dude bro stereo type exactly?

[Executor32]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... =Bro+Gamer

That, pretty much.

[Darmalus]

It makes sense to me, in a way. I'm old enough to remember when the upgrade to 56k seemed lightning fast in the early teens.

When I was young, I remember loving every bit of cleavage and tight fitting outfit and drop of sexualization I could get in comics, games, tv, movies, etc. As the internet matured and the amount and quality of free porn has increased, my love of naked women has not waned, but it has shifted. When I encounter it outside porn, frankly it feels like a distraction, an annoyance. If I want to see sexy ladies, I have as much as that as I can possibly stand already. If I am not watching porn, I'm watching it for reasons other than sexy ladies, so throwing sexy ladies in my face is not a plus, at best it's neutral or useful character development.

I don't dream this attitude is universal, but for the generation growing up with 24/7 access to unlimited amounts of porn, it might be increasingly common.

[Lord Revan]

It makes sense to me, in a way. I'm old enough to remember when the upgrade to 56k seemed lightning fast in the early teens.

When I was young, I remember loving every bit of cleavage and tight fitting outfit and drop of sexualization I could get in comics, games, tv, movies, etc. As the internet matured and the amount and quality of free porn has increased, my love of naked women has not waned, but it has shifted. When I encounter it outside porn, frankly it feels like a distraction, an annoyance. If I want to see sexy ladies, I have as much as that as I can possibly stand already. If I am not watching porn, I'm watching it for reasons other than sexy ladies, so throwing sexy ladies in my face is not a plus, at best it's neutral or useful character development.

I don't dream this attitude is universal, but for the generation growing up with 24/7 access to unlimited amounts of porn, it might be increasingly common.

that kind of makes sense, I mean I was born in the early 1980s so I'm old enough to have been a teen before broadband hit it big and I remember back in the 1990s that you did reach for every peice of sexual content or sexualized content cause it wasn't that easy to see naked women in sexual situations back then.

women who are sexualized for the sake of being "sexy" when their personality, past or other characteristics don't mesh with this depiction, for example having Warcraft Death Knight in an "armor" that covers less then most underwear, or a character described as "shy" wearing barely nothing in a culture where something like that isn't typical.

[trekky0623]

This was the said survey: surveymonkey.com/s/RPWgamers. As interesting of a question as this is, I wish they had sorted out the self-selection bias inherent in an online survey like SurveyMonkey. I know that Ashly Burch has said that she wants this survey to spawn more academic surveys on this question, but at the same time I wish respectful institutions like TIME had reported on those surveys, and not this one, because now we'll always have this figure of 57% that is undoubtedly wrong.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I was never fond of gratuitously over-sexualized characters when I was a teen. I grudgingly warmed to Tomb Raider because of the platforming, but the Croft character and other tropes like female barbarians in chain bikinis always came across lowbrow to me, like an unclever fart joke.

[Joun_Lord]

Pretty much what Darmalus said, used to be love anything sexual now not so much. Born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s. Was a horny little shit that loved even the hint of bewb in movies, games, whatever. Porn mags were like the holy grail and staying up late to try to watch late night racy flicks was something I did.

But now I'm still a considerably larger but still horny shit but I no longer am so titillated by tits. They are there and nice but usually I don't care to see them unless I'm actively looking for them. Games like Skyrim and Fallout where some people add in skimpy outfits I pretty much spend the whole game in heavy armor even though I added in nude mods (though not even to look at T&A but to add a bit more realism and as a fuck you to America's attitude towards sex and violence, if I can see the inside of somebodies body after a .308 round makes them explode I should be able to see some skin while I'm hunting for a chunk to loot).

A TV show I enjoy, Strike Back, has pretty gratuitous nudity. Its got nudity nearly every episode, Scott boffing some random chick atleast every other episode at times. While its a bit funny that Damien Scott apparently has a magical cock considering the poon he gets it adds nothing but cheap thrills. I like seeing sexy ladies naked but I'd watch a porno if I wanted to see that, not some action show.

Whats really funny about this attitude that Darmalus, Lord Revan, the kids in the survey, and I hold is I'm relatively positive this is the opposite of what people were saying would happen with greater access to porn and nudity. It was supposed to warp people, make them more and more addicted to sex and sexuality and all kinds of other mumbo jumbo about jubblies. But it seems to have the opposite effect.

Of course I think the same thing happens in areas of legalized prostitution. People say sex crimes are supposed to go up but instead it goes down when prostitution becomes a legal and regulated industry.

[Kane Starkiller]

57% believe that female characters are too often treated as sex objects

How much is too often? I don't know, this strikes me as very shoddy survey. Did they even link to the actual paper?

[Balrog]

57% believe that female characters are too often treated as sex objects

How much is too often? I don't know, this strikes me as very shoddy survey. Did they even link to the actual paper?

Just reading the initial article you could see the snideness dripping off every word; clearly someone had a point they wanted to prove. Anecdotally I can understand if even teenage boys aren't fans of oversexualization, but I'd wait until a more academic study is done on the issue.

[Eternal_Freedom]

57% believe that female characters are too often treated as sex objects

How much is too often? I don't know, this strikes me as very shoddy survey. Did they even link to the actual paper?

Just reading the initial article you could see the snideness dripping off every word; clearly someone had a point they wanted to prove. Anecdotally I can understand if even teenage boys aren't fans of oversexualization, but I'd wait until a more academic study is done on the issue.

As I understand it, this is precisely what the article is trying to make happen. A proper, controlled, carefully-worded survey on this may never have been done before because everyone just took it for granted. If this loose study can shake that view and other researchers take up the challenge, it can only be a good thing.

[Broomstick]

Part of the attraction of porn has always been the forbidden naughtiness of it. Take that away, and a lot of the panting-dog-in-heat behavior goes away. Sure, heterosexual and bisexual men are always going to like looking at women with obvious secondary sexual characteristics but if they're surrounded by such, even naked ones, they also become used to all that sexy flesh on a certain level and won't be going into uncontrollable heat at the mere sight of it. Contrary to rumor, men do have interests beyond pizza, beer, and sex.

[Lord Revan]

we do? why hasn't anyone told me that!

Seriously though the reason I said "in sexual situations" is that due to our traditions we finns don't automatically think of sex when we see nudity, it's not not atypical for pre-teen boys to go to the Sauna with their mothers or pre-teen girls with their fathers and this isn't considered sexual at all and traditionally you wear nothing at all in the sauna.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, big difference between the US and Finland (and other nations). In the US there are no mixed-gender situations involving nudity that are not sexualized, no matter how innocent. I mean, people have gotten in trouble for taking pictures of their own year old kids getting a bubble bath. When I worked for medical researchers the company computer network wanted to block any and all references to words like "breast" and "nipple" - which really threw a wrench into the breast cancer research (the morality police in the IT department asked, in all seriousness, "can't you use other terms to search for articles on line?" It took the CEO to get the jackass to make an exception for medical research)

Yes, Americans are prudes. I assume this is not news.

[TheFeniX]

"Gaming Expert" never ceases to make me laugh.

I don't know how valid this survey can really be. Who performed the interviews? If a woman is asking a young boy about over-sexualization, I have to assume his answers are going to vary than if asked by a man. Is a boy really going to say "I love boobs."? Maybe more than a few do based on the numbers.

That said, I think kids are generally smart enough to know when they're being pandered to. Having some cleavage show up in a game is one thing, but a developer trying to cover up bullshit with tits is too easy to call out. It's insulting because it makes a value judgement about the player. "HERE'S TITS! You little perverts love tits, buy my game!" The problem really becomes when it's a substitute for gameplay. It's basically porn at that point. Really terrible porn.

But young boys don't look to video games to jerk off, they look to them for gameplay. If the boobs don't get in the way of that gameplay, they don't get mad. But really, how many games are really like that? The games shown in the video are mostly those I can think of. God of War has always been a masturbation-fest and terrible. Dragon's Crown would have A. had no popularity if people didn't get so worked up over the tits and B. caricatures all the characters. Mass Effect 2? I thought Bioware was the golden-boy of equality. Metroid: Other M didn't over-sexualize Samus in the way other games have traditionally done. It basically tried to humanize Samus by making her the stereotypical Baby crazy, emotional train-wreck because the game has 0 redeeming qualities. Literally 0. It's bad on all fronts and the fan reaction followed that.

Really, there's Mortal Kombat, which no one should look to for progressive anything. Now that violence really has no shock-value, they can instead focus on boobs. Really though, the latest game is kind of cringe-worthy on many fronts.

I was never fond of gratuitously over-sexualized characters when I was a teen. I grudgingly warmed to Tomb Raider because of the platforming, but the Croft character and other tropes like female barbarians in chain bikinis always came across lowbrow to me, like an unclever fart joke.

Honest question: what was over-sexualized about Lara Croft? Only thing I could come up with was A. big boobs and B. she wore shorts when pants would have been a much better choice considering her recreational activities. I've only played TR1 and about half of 2 and it's been YEARS since I did that. But I never got the impression she was over-sexualized in the game. Advertisement after TR1 blew up is another story. I've said this before, but I think EIDOS didn't understand why people loved Tomb Raider. Same reason the guy who wrote Other M still doesn't understand why it had such blow-back: we don't mind sexy-badasses, but they have to be badasses first, sexy second.

From what I can remember, all the negative press concerning Lara Croft was brought on by EIDOS itself with the advertising. We had Croft center-folds and every convention had some model dressed up in a Croft Halloween costume that would be sold labelled "Sexy X." But the game itself: I never got the impression Croft was supposed to be a sex symbol.

Lately I've been of the mind that if all it takes is a sports bra and a change of clothes to label a character "not-sexualized," then I have a hard time believing they were over-sexualized in the first place. Obvious exceptions exist such as clothing that makes no sense and women fighting in high-heels.* Kitana is hard to pin down though because women seem to love cos-playing as her and from what I've read, she's one of the most popular character in the series with women, even though other more practically dressed character(s) exist. There's also when the camera itself is pandering to the boobs/ass, such as it having an unhealthy obsession with Miranda in Mass Effect 2.

*Joke observation: like Silk Spectre in Watchmen starting her brawl in the prison wearing heels, then cutting to the stunt actress fighting in flats.

[salm]

Lately I've been of the mind that if all it takes is a sports bra and a change of clothes to label a character "not-sexualized," then I have a hard time believing they were over-sexualized in the first place. Obvious exceptions exist such as clothing that makes no sense and women fighting in high-heels.* Kitana is hard to pin down though because women seem to love cos-playing as her and from what I've read, she's one of the most popular character in the series with women, even though other more practically dressed character(s) exist. There's also when the camera itself is pandering to the boobs/ass, such as it having an unhealthy obsession with Miranda in Mass Effect 2.

I guess some women simply like sexualized characters.
Just because women like something doesn´t suddently make it less sexualized after all.

[Starglider]

A significant part of the problem seems to be really lazy and generally creatively bankrupt marketing staff. I have been out of the industry for a while, but even still, my experience of games marketing was that they would do the minimum necessary to cash in. i.e. not bother to understand the games or the audience, just slap sex and violence and random 'edginess' on everything.

[Titan Uranus]

This was a public poll, and appears to have been linked to by a great many self-proclaimed feminist (often sex-negative ones) blogs.
The survey might have been biased by that.

According to the author of the survey, it was a preliminary survey, intended to get grant money.

Links:
https://archive.is/RkVMD#selection-313.293-313.318 The researcher.

https://archive.is/5EvNG The original link, I can provide others if anyone wishes me to do so.

Honestly, I was a teenage boy not that long ago, and unless my experience was dramatically unrepresentative, I doubt that this finding will hold up with real surveys, especially if the terms are defined within the survey.

[TheFeniX]

I guess some women simply like sexualized characters.
Just because women like something doesn´t suddently make it less sexualized after all.

That's a fair point. There's media popular among women that is all about sex.

I just see term likes "over-sexualization" and "Hyper-sexualization" thrown about like either is descriptive at all. Lara Croft is described as such and I've honestly never understood it. Maybe it's because, at the time, there were so many other tertiary female characters who existed as fanservice, I'm ignoring issues with the character. This is why I ask: what is "over-sexualized" about Croft? Does it even mean anything? Is it even a problem?

I don't think it's fair to write off a character because certain aspects of that character are exploitative. If the exploitation is the primary or only reason for the character to exist, that's another story.

A significant part of the problem seems to be really lazy and generally creatively bankrupt marketing staff. I have been out of the industry for a while, but even still, my experience of games marketing was that they would do the minimum necessary to cash in. i.e. not bother to understand the games or the audience, just slap sex and violence and random 'edginess' on everything.

Lately, I've found women being flat-out ignored aside from certain games series. We give developers shit for focusing on men when it's been shown games with female leads and/or engaging secondary female characters can easily sell games. But what people ignore is that focusing on men is making publishers billions of dollars. As much as "the Internet" wants to complain about poor representation of women in video games, no (or not enough) people are actually voting with their wallets. Only when the exploitation is the only selling point do people say "no," but that's usually because the game is shit. The sexism is only another talking point, not what actually makes people close their wallets.

I bring up Dragon's Crown again because literally no one would have given a shit about the game if everyone hadn't become so worked up about boobs. What happened was, at least from everything I've read, the only "bad points" are the boobs: the game is fun if you are into that genre. Players found a fun callback to the old side-scroller beat up DnD games, which were a darkhorse at the arcades. The same thing happened with Bayonetta 2, except that game was already heavily marketed.

I fully agree with the idea that no one cares if a well-written lead is male or female. The problem is, if they don't care, publishers will continue to beat positive male stereotypes to death. Except they will not die, just as they haven't in any other media. It's just too safe a bet. So, if they can ignore women or heap some boobs on top of a polished game, they're going to do so until people stop buying it.

[Darmalus]

I guess some women simply like sexualized characters.
Just because women like something doesn´t suddently make it less sexualized after all.

That's a fair point. There's media popular among women that is all about sex.

I just see term likes "over-sexualization" and "Hyper-sexualization" thrown about like either is descriptive at all. Lara Croft is described as such and I've honestly never understood it. Maybe it's because, at the time, there were so many other tertiary female characters who existed as fanservice, I'm ignoring issues with the character. This is why I ask: what is "over-sexualized" about Croft? Does it even mean anything? Is it even a problem?

I don't think it's fair to write off a character because certain aspects of that character are exploitative. If the exploitation is the primary or only reason for the character to exist, that's another story.

A significant part of the problem seems to be really lazy and generally creatively bankrupt marketing staff. I have been out of the industry for a while, but even still, my experience of games marketing was that they would do the minimum necessary to cash in. i.e. not bother to understand the games or the audience, just slap sex and violence and random 'edginess' on everything.

Lately, I've found women being flat-out ignored aside from certain games series. We give developers shit for focusing on men when it's been shown games with female leads and/or engaging secondary female characters can easily sell games. But what people ignore is that focusing on men is making publishers billions of dollars. As much as "the Internet" wants to complain about poor representation of women in video games, no (or not enough) people are actually voting with their wallets. Only when the exploitation is the only selling point do people say "no," but that's usually because the game is shit. The sexism is only another talking point, not what actually makes people close their wallets.

I bring up Dragon's Crown again because literally no one would have given a shit about the game if everyone hadn't become so worked up about boobs. What happened was, at least from everything I've read, the only "bad points" are the boobs: the game is fun if you are into that genre. Players found a fun callback to the old side-scroller beat up DnD games, which were a darkhorse at the arcades. The same thing happened with Bayonetta 2, except that game was already heavily marketed.

I fully agree with the idea that no one cares if a well-written lead is male or female. The problem is, if they don't care, publishers will continue to beat positive male stereotypes to death. Except they will not die, just as they haven't in any other media. It's just too safe a bet. So, if they can ignore women or heap some boobs on top of a polished game, they're going to do so until people stop buying it.

Another issue is if the people upset by the lack of well crafted female characters were ever potential customers to begin with. I remember a recent Assassins Creed Whatever thread where people were talking about how having 1 out of 3 (IIRC) characters be female wouldn't get them to buy the game or even consider it because they were already mad. From a developers perspective, that's basically telling them to ignore you because you were never a potential customer anyway for that franchise and it's safe to go back to formula.

[TheFeniX]

Another issue is if the people upset by the lack of well crafted female characters were ever potential customers to begin with. I remember a recent Assassins Creed Whatever thread where people were talking about how having 1 out of 3 (IIRC) characters be female wouldn't get them to buy the game or even consider it because they were already mad. From a developers perspective, that's basically telling them to ignore you because you were never a potential customer anyway for that franchise and it's safe to go back to formula.

I think a lot of people who play video games are mad or at least wouldn't mind more fleshed-out female characters... or characters in general really. I certainly wouldn't. But the majority are too busy having fun buying games with engaging gameplay. Yes, shooting dude as a woman for once would be nice, but shooting dudes as a man is enjoyable, so they just keep dropping money where the fun happens to be.

For the first time in my MMO gaming, I'm maining a female character (Jovial lied, said we got two free fantasias.... you don't). Sure, I can play dress-up barbie, whatever, it's cool. The game also make numerous lewd references to sex, prostitution, and a whole list of other innuendo that skirts the T rating. But it's tongue-in-cheek, much like old Nickelodeon cartoons. Rugrats and Rocko's Modern Life in particular. But no one hangs around FFXIV for that. The hang around because Squeenix continues to provide a wide range of quality content. If pure-sexy shit sold, Aion and Age of Conan would be up there in subs. They aren't, the gameplay is bland and grindy.

No one content with a product wastes time going to forums or bothering with social media to complain/compliment a video game. That's reserved for people with an axe to grind, both ways. Either people who just hate X or people who love X and made it their mission to tirelessly defend it. So, we've really got a bias sampling of who likes and hates X for whatever reason.

Video games are also a popular scapegoat now that they've busted out of the realm of nerdy losers who can't get laid. I posted the video of Fox bashing Mass Effect, bringing on a "Psychologist Specialist" to lament how sex in video games makes us hate women and how this is a problem.... when she's never even played the game and actual sex (including conversations leading up to it) could be at most 15 minutes in a 20-hour game. At least soccer-moms who hated Mortal Kombat had a point: the game actually was ridiculously (to the point of hilarity) violent. MK never once creeped or grossed me out in any way. Mario64 and Zelda:OoT actually did, but those are kids games, so parents don't get mad about them.

[bilateralrope]

Mass Effect 2? I thought Bioware was the golden-boy of equality.

They may be that now. But the options in ME1 and 2 were lacking.

The romance options in ME1 were:
- Male Sheppard with female human.
- Female Sheppard with male human.
- Sheppard of either gender with a a female alien that could have a child with anyone.
The only relationships on offer were ones that could lead to a child.

ME2:
- 3 female partners for male Sheppard.
- 3 male partners for female Sheppard.
- 3 female partners for either Sheppard. None of which grant the achievement, and one of them kills Sheppard during sex.
Relationships that could not lead to a child were added, but the achievement is valuing the lesbian relationships as less than the heterosexual ones. No homosexual relationship for a male Sheppard, no NPCs that were exclusively homosexual.

It wasn't until ME3 that Bioware gave us exclusively homosexual characters.

I haven't played the Dragon Age games, so I can't comment on them.

[Starglider]

With Bioware it seemed more like the writers cared about this on a personal level than EA market research feeding back into the game design. They could do it because putting those relationships in didn't really take anything from the rest of the game (just a tiny fraction of the dev budget). Games with a smaller cast and non-branching plot (i.e. non-RPGs) take more risk.

[TheFeniX]

They may be that now. But the options in ME1 and 2 were lacking.

My quote was more tongue-in-cheek. That said, homosexual options aren't relevant to the over-sexualization of women. Though I am glad someone is willing to add them because it's fairly obvious they do not detract away from the game like people claimed they would. ME3 had multiple issues, none of which were related to same-sex ugly-bumpin.'

[Civil War Man]

I haven't played the Dragon Age games, so I can't comment on them.

Just to provide this information for the Dragon Age games for completion's sake:

Dragon Age: Origins had
1 male partner for female Wardens
1 female partner for male Wardens
1 male partner for male or female Wardens
1 female partner for male or female Wardens
So it had options for everyone, but didn't have any strictly homosexual characters. The two same-sex romance options were also available to the opposite sex.

In Dragon Age 2, all romance options were bisexual. All options were available to Hawkes of both sexes. There were no strictly homosexual characters, but there were also no strictly heterosexual characters.

Dragon Age: Inquisition had baseline 2 male and 2 female romance options for both male and female Inquisitors (one same sex, one opposite sex, and 2 bisexual options), plus 1 additional male option for female human or elf Inquisitors and 1 additional male partner for only female elf Inquisitors.

Getting beyond romance options, though, I'm pretty sure that Inquisition is the first game I've played that had a transman NPC.