NOTE: Sexual Imagery has been censored to a degree for discretion, however article does contain sexual discussion

Confused by the picture on the right? Think it belongs to some soft porn site? Dont be silly, this is just a game advertisment. You must have been able to tell, its for a crime/car/action game... oh, you couldn't tell from the picture? Silly you. This is one of the adverts for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Says so much about the game dont you think? Dont get mad though, this is way more common than you probably realise. Sex Sells. Period.

Advertising and sex have been inextricably linked since advertising became big business. The games industry is not outwith this successful and proven formula where sex is used as a persuasive tool to invite the viewer to consume. The problem however seems to be that the games industry isn't moving forward in using sex to sell games to female gamers as well. We girl gamers might not have a problem with the overt sexual imagery used in advertising games if it were less biased and incorporated the same tactics for male and female gamers. When Mulvey spoke of the Male Gaze it was with reference to film, however you need to look at any random popular game and you'll more than likely find a female character who is positioned as a sexual object, either overtly or subtly.

The majority of games aimed at the female gamer tend to be targeted at the pre-adolescent age group. Between the ages of 4-14, there are many games out specifically for girls (Barbie, Olsen Twins, Hamtaro etc) however past this age the female gamer seems to become obsolete. Could this be the reason there are rarely any adult females in games stores buying new releases for themselves? Have they become alienated from the games industry as the trend to offer them only bit parts and walk on roles continues despite the fact that the gaming industry claims to be interested in the female market.

Dont get me wrong, there ARE marked improvements, at least now most games will let you chose a female character, decidedly better from even a few years ago, however female gamers want to be addressed as prominantly as male gamers. We dont want to know that if we buy a game which features female characters, we will have to put up with the character being a sexual object throughout the game. There are some great strong female characters (Lara anyone?) however, even Lara has her moments of overt sexualisation. One of the most recent gaming heroines who has sidestepped any stereotypes is Jade in the excellent Beyond Good and Evil. This game is a perfect example of how to have a female character who doesn't need to be sexed up, doesn't need to be advertised as sexy and doesn't have less skills than the typical male character. This said, Beyond Good and Evil was unfairly overlooked in sales terms on release, perhaps because of this choice of marketing approach.

Think about this...
Most of the people reading this are probably guys because although here at Thumb Bandits we are lucky enough to have a large female gamer following, demographically speaking chances are even the title of this article has spurred our male visitors to click on it, so with that said..... Think of the following images and question whether you'd feel strange buying a game with these types of photos on the cover. If you were bombarded with this all the time would you start feeling inadequate? Perhaps you'd feel that the game was aimed at women or gay men? Would it say much to you about the game itself? We're not bitching guys, we can all appreciate a good looking woman but why do we need to use this and at times only this to advertise a game in which the woman is ultimately not an integral aspect anyway.