Analysis: Is Prime World's female promotion sexist?

Publisher Nival feels in-game bonuses for female gamers sounds like a nice way of attracting new customers. The internet disagrees

Publisher?Nival recently announced that it is giving in-game advantages to female players in its upcoming MMO?Prime World. At first glance, this might seem like a harmless, unique marketing technique to try to get females who play games casually to try out their newest game. In fact, that?s exactly what they were going for. However, instead of people receiving this well, it became quite the subject of rage among the genders.

Prime World is a PC game that follows in the wake of multiplayer online battle arena games like League of Legends and DoTA, but adds a unique aspect by also featuring social minigames on Facebook, iOS, and Android devices. Also, the game will link players to their Facebook accounts, identifying their gender.

Multi-gender parties will be stronger than same-sex teams

Female players who play female characters will be granted special bonus skills when playing alongside male gamers. A team of both women and men is more powerful than a team of all men. This is supposed to encourage more females to play this game.

Nival creative producer Larisa Nuretdinova told Penny Arcade, ?The idea is to introduce the MOBA genre not only to hardcore players who already love it, but to their friends who might be more casual, and of course to their sisters and girlfriends who may not be as hardcore.?

Nuretdinova went on to tell Penny Arcade ?To do the very best, you?ll want a female player on your team?and the bonus is only available when a team is made of mixture of male and female players who are playing as characters of the required gender.?

Originally, the gaming world was informed that females would get discounts when playing as female characters, which caused outrage and sexist claims from the gaming community. Since then, Nival president?Sergey Galyonki clarified to Kotaku,??If you?re male you can get several male heroes cheaper.?

Silly sexist things about gaming and the female gender have been happening for years. Most of the time, the majority can laugh it off, like the Girl Fight press release fiasco, which asked, ?Are you ready to lick the competition?? about the upcoming sexy all-female fighter title. Ridiculous? Yes. Childish? Yes, but the gaming community can look past all that and just forget it ever happened. However, Prime World was the straw that broke the camel?s back.

As someone who considers herself a competitive gamer who just happens to be female, I am completely and utterly insulted. I have always claimed that anyone giving me an advantage to winning just because I?m a girl is the ultimate offense. How dare Nival make a mockery of my hard work! Female gamers have strived towards equality in gaming and by segregating males and females, Nival took a huge step backwards.

I?m not the only one upset by the news, both males and females are horrified by Nival?s approach. Twitter user?Arrie?commented ?WHA!???! That?s so lame! And also really frakking offensive,? in response to the news. Richard Macleod told his followers on the social networking site, ?It?s so incredibly stupid my mind completely skips over the issue and goes straight to how they can verify gender.? Another Twitter user?Phoenix Blue said, ?Wow. Um, sexist much?? upon hearing the news. These are just a few of the many negative responses.

Women playing as women are stronger than men playing as women (or vice versa)

Nival is trying to get the attention of casual gamers to persuade them to play alongside their hardcore counterparts, especially the women. But are these casuals really ready for the next step? Playing amongst hardcore competitive gamers is no walk in the park. Trash talk is abundant and they will get looked down upon just for being new. Having groups of both women and men together will not nullify these hardships that have plagued competitive gaming communities for years.

The blatant sexism Nival is using is painful to watch. Why must there be such a heavy focus on gender? ?When boys gather around to play games just with each other, it?s not really social. When girls gather around just to chat, it?s not very social. The social starts when they hang out together and play games together,? Nuretdinova told Penny Arcade. Nival is also treading dangerously close to offending those who don?t necessarily define themselves in one gender. Gender is not just defined as male and female. Nival could not only be mistaken for sexists, but as bigots too.

The female characters in Prime World are scantily clad and look like gorgeous models. Female gamers can choose between extremely busty Artiste, need-a-sweater Fire Fox, and other degrading female archetypes. While most in the gaming community are used to this portrayal of women, many outsiders are not and it?s sure to put a lot of them off of the game altogether.

There is still the problem of people just plain abusing the system. Changing your sex on Facebook or making a fake account is so simple. ?But if you create a fake Facebook profile, you lose all social benefits, like playing with your real friends in game? I don?t expect someone to change Facebook gender for a game.? Galyonki said in response. Galyonki doesn?t know the competitive gaming community very well. A win is all that matters, and it doesn?t matter how you achieve that win.

Nival may have tried to be honest and sincere with its promotion of females in the game, but it certainly has backfired on them. The company should have researched common sense and maybe spoken to actual female gamers before unleashing such ridiculousness. Truly, it was a dark day for gaming equality when this news broke in the gaming industry.

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