No more men in fighting games?

When I played my first fighting game, Street Fighter, there was only one playable female character. Eventhough this female character, Chun-Li, doesn´t look exactly as she did back then (yes I´m talking about those ridiculous thighs!) she´s still one of the pioneers in the fighting game genre. In other Street Fighter games more women were introduced and also other games had their fair share of women, up to a point where you have as much men as women in a fighting game. But with female characters being so popular in fighting games it´s more and more likely that the men might become extinct because there are already games out there with only female characters. Not all of these games are fantastic but it does show that you can have a fighting game with only women but not one with only men, oh wait maybe Killer Instinct? Wrong there was also a female character in that game!


People enjoy watching women fight? If with people you mean teenage guys then yes, well I´m not saying that adults or women don´t like playing as women but I don´t think that a lot of them would go for the type of games that scream desperate teenager! But it´s true, people like to see women fight and it´s not a surprise that female wrestling is popular. I´ve heard stories that some women even enjoy watching women wrestle, so it´s not that strange! In most games you see your character from the back, so it doesn´t really matter what gender you play if that´s all you´re going to see. Sure you can move the camera around but when you´re fighting against enemies or have to rush through a dangerous area there isn´t time for that! But in a fighting game you see your character (often) from the side, which means it´s more interesting play as an attractive woman instead of a guy. So it doesn´t surprise me that a lot of people will play as a female character and look good while beating the shit out of someone!


So what does this mean for the future? Who knows, maybe some fighting games will keep their male characters while others will get rid of them or maybe give them a sex change (which would be a bold move). Actually there is already a transsexual fighter, Poison (from Final Fight and Street Figher), so it wouldn´t be completely unthinkable. But she was introduced as a post op transsexual and she´s not a male character from the series that had a sex change between games. I´m actually not concerned about certain male characters, I seriously doubt that Ryu would ever be kicked out of Street Fighter or that Jin will be left out in the new Tekken game. Some characters will survive because they´re popular or just looking bad ass so no need to get rid of them. But it wouldn´t surprise me if female characters are going to dominate the fighting games, to be honest I don´t even consider that as a bad thing!