Consoles And Women Toys - 1463 Words

Consoles and Women: Toys to be Played With An analysis of game advertisements According to a 2014 study done by the Entertainment Software Association, 59% of Americans play video games, and 51% own at least one dedicated game console. 48% of gamers identify as female, and 39% of all gamers are over the age of 36 (Entertainment Software Association, 2014, p.3). This goes against the perceived audience of young, heterosexual males; however, console companies insist on marketing their products to this imagined audience through the use of sexualised advertisements. Figure 1: Seroussi, L. (Photographer). (2012). Touch both sides. [Photograph], Retrieved October 5, 2014, from:†¦show more content†¦Sony has chosen to advertise their product by comparing their console to a woman created for the express purpose of bringing heterosexual men pleasure. As well as having four breasts, the woman has an unrealistically narrow waist, an elongated neck, and the photo crops her face. This dehumanizes her, and allows the imagined audience to project their fantasies onto her body. The PS Vita, which the ad is trying to sell, does not take up even a quarter of the page. By portraying the woman with impossible physical attributes, and then placing the focus of the viewer on these attributes, this advertisement becomes an astounding example of sexual objectification; however, it is far from the first. Sexual depictions of women in console advertisements have been circulating in the gaming industry for roughly 40 years since Computer Space, a coin operated arcade game, was released. It was the first commercially sold video game (Edwards, 2011, para 1), and its advertisement features a scantily clad woman standing passively beside a game cabinet (figure 3). Over the course of the 80’s and the 90’s, this style of advertisement became more common, until it was one of the most prevalent styles of console marketing (figure 4, 5, 6, 7). Though the ads feature different women posing with different games, they all share the same core concept of sexually posing a woman with the product. Figure 3: