My game cover has a female in the front cover and follows an idea of a mighty non-sexualised character. I produced a battlefield warfare game where I created a dominant signifying image that was essentially feminine although it didn’t follow idealistic and reactionary view of women not being empowered or being a soldier in war, in this game cover a female is shown to a be leader and is appropriately empowered. This corresponds to Toril Moi’s analysis of the distinction between female, feminine, feminist categories of representation (1987). This can be identified in the posture that I created for my main character, it is a unorthodox, almost silly pose, which when I tested it on my target audience they recognized as “a different and intriguing pose!”. Moreover this quote reinforces my view on it being used to tackle common visionary views and bring forth new ideas and a game cover that is unique. As well as bringing different perceptions of women in video games and challenging our generations male gaze, objectification and overall derogatory views and use of women in this market and others…

Further to this, I have exaggerated the dystopian attributes of my character with an armored helmet, legs and torso with tough leather to emphasize the dystopian setting. I also included clothing that was war-like and confrontational, including a large satchel – signifying combat, aggression, conflict etc – and once again, a war-like as well as an almost knight-like helmet, once more showing the dystopian ideas I am trying to portray. This character is shown to be brave and can effectively use her surroundings. In some ways this inverts Laura Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze in that my main character has no one to be objectified and looked at. However, the notion of the male gaze is quite distinct as it relates to the sexualisation of the dominant signifier, which is not the case for my character. Nevertheless, I believe that it is generally accepted in society that masculinity is seen as much more aggressive, confrontational and violent than femininity. So in this sense my product is a reactionary representation of femininity in an almost typical masculine way. To explain this, my female character shows a stereotypical masculine type notion in most video games, meaning the use of a female in a non-sexualised way, is a strong tool used to tackle these routine and repeated negative stereotypes and instead illustrates counter-types where the female is not misrepresented as a weak character incapable of a leading story line and is instead a strong and adept leader worthy of being the main character. In conclusion my character is not a typical character with toxic masculinity and shows and leads males to a more healthy view on society.