It is no secret that the stereotype of who plays video games is a guy, probably living at home with his parents, that is not really doing anything with his life. This may have been true when video games first came out for home play (arcade games were around before the home console). However, times have changed and video games as a whole, be it mobile, computer, or console, have become more popular. With that, the demographic has become more vast. The average person who plays video games is no longer guys with no lives. With the creation of mobile games, females now consist of 51%, just over half, of all gamers. This is not a male dominated market anymore. The market now has to be able to accommodate virtually anyone, but females are still overlooked. In video games the main character is more often than not a male character. Once in a while a game will come out with a female main character. Some of these females are perpetuated negatively, or at least over-sexualized. There are few good role models for girls, or even women, found within video games. That it not to say that there are absolutely none. In fact, one game that was done by the company Square Enix comes to mind, a game titled Life is Strange.
The main character is a high school student named Max Caulfield, who has just recently moved back to her home town of Arcadia Bay to go to a private school. Upon her first day of class she starts to notice that there is something really wrong going on in the town and that she has the power to turn back time. She starts an investigation to find out what is happening in the town and to herself.
Over the course of the game she is represented positively overall. Unlike a good number of females in videogames, Max is not represented sexually. Her wardrobe is just a T-shirt, jacket, jeans, and converse style shoes. Her cleavage does not show, and she does not have an unrealistic breast or posterior size. Even beyond her attire and design, she does not act overly sexual either. Like a “normal” high schooler she can develop a crush and has a chance to kiss them or not (player choice), but that is the most sexual that she gets. Her presentation to the audience is not based off of her looks but rather the elements of her personal character.
Max is by default a very moral person. The player has choices that can make her slightly less so, such as making her really petty, but the way that she communicates through the thoughts that the player is able to hear and the journal that she keeps leans more toward making the morally “right” choices. She expresses genuine concern for her fellow students, even those that act maliciously toward her. Their safety and well-being is something that she really thinks on and attempts to ensure that the students at the high school and the community at large is safe from the natural disaster that she thinks is heading that way. There are multiple instances in the game where she puts herself at physical harm in order to help someone get to safety from the events that are going on surrounding the town. Even when there are consequences for her she helps those that need her help both in the physical realm of the world but also those that she encounters during her investigation.
As a whole Max to be a good friend to everyone as well. Sometimes those that she is trying to help and do right by do not appreciate her help but she feels that she is obliged to try. Max is also a really good student. She takes her work seriously and really strives for success in her photography. When looking at her character she attempts to be the best person she can.
Max is not perfect by any definition. She has a lot of confidence issues and has a tendency to be way too nosy. There are moments in the game when she does not know what to do so she starts to freak out, and for some of these instances she passes out because of reasons that are tied to her powers. Even with considering these faults though she is not powerless or weak. Some players may even relate to these types of reactions. Through her faults she still manages to get through whatever is happening. Not everything in the game has a happy ending but those moments where she fails makes her more determined to fix things. Take away her time control powers, which weakens her every time she uses them, and she just a normal teenager. Max manages to make successes with her own intelligence and ingenuity.
Females need more role models like Max in their video games. Especially girls who are growing up and going into their preteen and teen years. This can be a turbulent time of discovering who they want to be, and frankly, those role models are found more in someone's media now then they are in real life. If we as a society want our females to feel like they are more than just some sex object, one piece to that is representing females differently in the media, and video games are a part of that.
