On the 28th of September, Riot Games MOBA, League
of Legends, unveiled their latest champion, Jinx, the Loose Cannon. Like most
unveilings, the soon to be champion was criticised, loved, hated, praised and
everything in between. Players criticised her for being totally ‘OP’ and
broken, immediately asking for a rework before she even hit public servers.
Aside from her skill set and stats, her physical appearance was also put under
intense scrutiny. Unlike most female League of Legends champions, Jinx did not
possess the over sexualised body that the others had. League of Legends has
always been criticised by players for over sexualising their female champions,
many having large breasts, toned thin bodies and attire which, unlike their
male counterparts, did not seem appropriate or practical for battle. The change
from the normal depictions of women in League of Legends created many jokes
within the community about her chest needed a ‘buff’. Initially I didn’t see an
issue with the character or any other character until I started reading posts
by other Summoners about how they feel about gender representation within the
game.
New champion Jinx, copyright League of Legends, Riot Games.
The League community has shown to have several different
views on how Riot depict women in their games, with many supporting their
designs as the norm and in similar to most other games, while others saw the
characters as sexist depictions of women aimed at pleasing a male dominated
audience. This is an example of Hall’s idea of three readings that audiences
can take from a product. The readings are the dominant or preferred reading,
the negotiated reading and the oppositional reading. This article will discuss
how players within the League community take different readings from the way
Riot depicts their female champions.
Many players feel there is a large amount of sexualisation
within the game. One particular player, L2 Sentinel, wrote a large scathing
article in the League of Legends forum regarding his view on the topic. While
the game is predominately played by males, there are a large number of females
playing the game. L2 Sentinel discusses the large range of female characters in
the game which are depicted in a more sexual way than their male counterparts.
He then goes on to describe various characters and their skins, highlighting how
they promote a sexist view of females.
 |
| Riot Graves, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games |
“Officer Caitlyn is in many ways the most disappointing. She
is in a position of authority. She is the Sheriff of Piltover, but she gets a
stripper cop outfit. No officer in real life dresses like Caitlyn. They’d never
be taken seriously. She could have been a badass. Real missed opportunity here.
Meanwhile Riot Graves, gets to be the real deal.”
 |
| Officer Caitlyn, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games |
 |
| Batte Bunny Riven, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games |
There are several more examples where characters are dressed
as skimpy nurses, playboy bunnies and French maids, all while showing a large
portion of their breasts and exposed mid drifts with supermodel thin waists. L2
has then calculated that over 78% of female champions are depicted in a sexual
manner while on 3% of male champions can be considered to
be sexualised as well.
L2 Sentinel then goes out to point
that while there is very little diversity in
female appearance in the game, males characters vary in appearance, age, size
and stature. Certain males are depicted as classically strong, tall and heroic
but there are also those who are obese, old and even just plain creepy. L2
Sentinel’s view of Riot’s depiction of women is certainly an oppositional one,
where he entirely disagrees with how the characters should be depicted,
regardless of gender. |
| Old man Zilean, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games |
The amateur post and article written by L2 Sentinel
is further supported by a study done by James Ivory of Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University. His study found that “Of the 32 reviews with pictured female characters, 41% (N =13) contained sexually suggestive imagery of females; only 4% (N = 3) of the78 reviews with pictured males similarly included
sexually suggestive male representations.” However the results could be seen as
most of the subjects were males, but that also ties with the idea that video
games are more likely to be played by males rather than females, which is why
content is created to appeal to them over females. The study also found that
there were more male playable characters than women, which exacerbates the
issue where there are only a small amount of women in games and most of them
will be depicted in an over sexualised manner. Ivory also points out that there
is a large portion of people who hold a negotiated or preferred reading to
gaming content in regards to the sexualisation of women in video games. Ivory
points out that most gamers and gaming staff are ‘primarily male’ who hold an
“ambivalent or unsupportive” view “toward sexualised portrayals in video
games”. With Ivory’s study showing that
the majority of female characters are depicted in the same manner in games,
suggests that negotiated or preferred readings are perhaps only so due to such
depictions being the norm in video games and therefore, gamers are never
exposed to any oppositional views within the game.
It is
clear within the gaming community of League of Legends that there is a
difference in gender representation when it comes to champion creation. Many
within the community hold a strong oppositional reading, where they find
offense in the lack of diversity in female characters and a clear sexualisation
within those champions. However, the majority of players are male and they seem
to find no issue with the depiction of any character within the game. With
games being a clearly male dominated business, the pressure for content to be
appealing to males is evident and perhaps game producers are creating content
which suits the preferred reading of the majority. Through this study I have
found that I hold a negotiated reading over this issue, as I can see how both preferred
and oppositional readings feel on the issue. While I do believe that there is
need for more character diversity within League of Legends, and all video games,
it would be hard to sell to a male dominated audience if your content does not
appeal to them.
References
–
Hall, S 1980, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television
Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp.
55-58, accessed 12 Sept 2013
Raessens, J 2005,
‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook
of Computer Game Studies.MIT
Press Cambridge.Mass, pp.373-388.
L2 Sentinel, 2012,
Senior Member, ‘@ Riot A serious discussion about gender. Please read’ League
of Legends Forums, http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2646142&highlight=l2+sentinel
James D Ivory, 2006, ‘Still a Man’s Game: Gender
Representation in Online Reviews of Video Games’, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jivory/JIvory2006MassCommunicationandSociety.pdf
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