Most of those actresses are completely unconvincing in actiony, ass-kicker roles. Aside from highly stylized things like Aeon Flux, Guardians of the Galaxy and Resident Evil none of them have convincingly played ass-kickers. Ripley wasn't out there murdering aliens like it was her job, she was a survivor who stepped up when she had to to get it done, like using a mech suit to fight the Queen. Imperator Furiosa wasn't kicking any War Boys' ****s in like a freakin' superhero, she was out-driving them and shooting them from a distance. Black Widow isn't taking on Ultron or one of those huge flying aliens like the Hulk because she's not capable of that, so she takes out the grunts.
lol sure, driving around and shooting from far away is precisely how Furiosa gets in Immortal Joe's face and rips his jaw off. 
Black Widow doesn't have super powers. If there were a Justice League movie, Batman wouldn't exactly be doing the same tasks as Superman, not because he's a sissy girl, but because he doesn't have an impervious skeleton with superhuman strength and laser beams coming out of his butt.
Yes, had I known that the ME series had a gender choice sooner, it would have affected my purchase. I would have been less likely to treat it as a space marine clone, and instead a game on more of it's own merits. A big reason is because much pretty all of those "Space Marine" shooters don't offer a gender choice or have a female lead character (outside of a few characters like Samus,) especially back about 3 years ago. Just that knowledge would have gotten me to at least try ME1 a lot sooner than I did.
I completely agree with this. The way I see it, the female demographic has always been an untapped market for video games, mostly because companies made little to no attempt at making games be understood as more than mindless entertainment catered to sausage fests.
This is my experience with how much of a difference marketing can make when it comes to games, and how the laziness/complacency of conventional video game marketing has left me ignorant of how awesome video games can be for too many years.
I never got into video games when I was young, because like most chicks, I was under the impression they were all about blood, guts, gore, mindless shooting, and illogically dressed busty women thrown in here and there. Simple entertainment for simple minds. This stubborn mindset only changed when I discovered Lord of the rings in my teens. The movies first came out when I was a really young kid and the trailers made me think it was another dumb action movie and I wasn't old enough to do my own research on the internet. Obviously, getting to watch the movies flipped my world upside down and it was one of those things that taught me to keep a more open mind about entertainment.
I picked up Guild Wars 1, my first video game, at the recommendation of some friends who told me all the cool interesting things you can do. I was blown away by how much I could customize my character in my own ideal female image, to whom I became very attached and immersed myself in, as well as all the game had to offer in story, lore, and gameplay. Throughout high school most of my friends were non-gaming females, so Guild Wars was all I knew, and I became convinved I wouldn't like any other game. Its competitors were things like WoW which was stylized as if it were a cartoon show for little boys and I knew how infamously toxic the community was. Although mostly friendly, the GW community eventually showed me how unfriendly the gaming community can be specifically to female players. It was enough to discourage me from really immersing myself in gaming culture for years.
After beating all Guild Wars expansions I got bored, had nothing to play, went to college, and lost touch of all things gaming. That changed when I discovered tumblr, and saw that a comedian I followed was obsessed with reblogging gifs Isabela. I rolled my eyes, because she looked like such a stereotypical video game bimbo (of course I regret those thoughts now lol!) But then I started seeing gifs of Isabela and Fenris, and I was like, WOAH woah...who is this hot elf??? This was literally the first time I ever saw a video game character that was hot to me as a chick.
And then there were all of these gifs of Izzy and other companions having the most interesting/witty, sometimes touching, dialogue, way more interesting than anything I saw in Guild Wars and I was so intrigued. That brought me to playing Dragon Age 2 and over the next few years that brought my world upside down again as I discovered the wonderful world of Bioware and became so attached to the protagonists I made in my image and the experiences delivered by those games
Upon discovering Bioware, I kind of dug myself a rut again. Assumed I could only like Bioware games, just 'cause. I felt like I was too spoiled for having spent years only playing as female protagonists, and couldn't change from that immersive experience. I had a friend in who recommended Saints Row to me at some point. I immediately shrugged it off, assumed it was a Grand Theft copy cat. Wasn't interested in driving over hookers. But then I decided to research it, and when I learned I could play an asian female I was like WOAH woah woah full stop. I can be a chick, and actually make her look like me? Holy sh**!!!! And all of these reviews say it's fun, hilarious, tongue in cheek. What can go wrong? I bought SR3 and 4 immediately and LOVED it. Of course, this made me even more open minded to video games. Open minded as in that I can't base my judgement on the first impressions I get from conventional video game marketing. From the outside, video game culture has painted itself to be a 'boys' world' that only cares about blood, fast cars, and bewbz. Which is a shame really. Video games to me have become art that can easily be enjoyed by both sexes. Action and adventure is not exclusive to dudes.
After seeing Mad Max, I went on tumblr to look at fan art. I came across a personal post from a young woman was saying how she tried to convincea group of middle aged women to watch the movie. She was prepared to make a long, flowery intellectual speech about why it was such a frickin cool movie, but her first words were something like '"one of the main characters is a woman, and she isn't sexualized-" and after just saying that, the women were uber gungho to watch it. Mind you, they were just middle aged moms, not hipstery 20 somethings obsessed with preaching feminism (not that teaching feminism is a bad thing, but you know what I'm saying). Apparently they all loved it, and one of them loved it so much she took her teen daughter to watch it again. It only took a simple matter of fact to change their minds about an action flick. There was a compelling female lead who was not sexualized. Gee whiz!
What my personal foray into games has made me believe is that women never had to be excluded from video game marketing. They just were, the first games ever were essentially button mashing and told the story of Mario saving the princess, and advertisements came with imagery of little boys going wow over explosions and crap. I don't think it takes a 180 to show the world that video games are not limited to being a boy's world, especially today given how sophisticated it has become. The things that got me into it are female protagonists/characters, action, adventure, compelling NPCs and storytelling, and occasionally hot guys (thank you Fenris lol). I just didn't know I can enjoy and find these things in video games, but I just wasn't taught better. Like most young girls I was brainwashed that they had cooties lol.
Sure certain products are there are marketed differently via different sexes, but those are just products. Video games are about delivering an experience, and when did that have to be marketed with a specific sex in mind? The most remarkable TV shows and films don't cater themselves to a single sex, they just deliver a solid, entertaining experience and achieve success through sharing it. I think video games should also pursue this sort of gender-neutral promise. They culture spent too many years dressing itself male, and it sucks. When I tell my non-gaming female friends about video games, they crinkle their noses as if it has cooties, and I feel like its their long-ingrained schoolgirl instincts telling them to go 'yuck' at a boys' hobby. They just don't know any better, and it's not their fault.
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