Commander Mode

Important note: If you aren't a BF4 person and are not interested in watching the trailer, I am referring to the portion of the video starting about 1 minute 16 seconds in.

My experience as a male white gamer for the last 20+ years is that anytime you see a woman involved in gaming, it is almost always as a submissive, super sexy role, not as an actual equal in gaming. There has been a trend to change this attitude (even though there are at least the same amount of women gaming, the idea that women are gamers seems foreign to most gamer guys and to most video game companies).

I was looking at upcoming video games and I found a pleasant surprise while watching Battlefield 4 trailer/gameplay videos. This is honestly unusual, watching the trailers/gameplay almost always is either a neutral or a negative experience when related to the white male privilege issue.

The gameplay video is sort of what I was expecting. I don't see any female models in other gameplay trailers, and by the time I got to this one I figured this was a standard male only area. I was impressed a bit, evidently when in commander mode you can use a tablet to participate. I was even more impressed when the spokesman panned to an example of a commander using the tablet and the person they showed was a woman.

This is almost unheard of, and honestly I hadn't expected it from EA/DICE or from a combat orientated video game. It made my day. I realize this isn't much, and honestly the fact that it is a big deal is a sign of the problem, but it is a start. The even more impressive portion is she is in the "command" position, the person supposedly responsible for directing others on the field (now the reality is only a portion of players will follow the commander, but that is for any game).

I hope to see this type of thing more often.

You will find the example of a female gaming commander at the 1:17 section.