Gaming's recent obsession with young girls?

It doesn't bother me actually. I liked TR and TWD. Just having a young girl in it won't make it good automatically.

wat

I too hope the industry moves more towards an emotional medium. Some of the best games are ones with stories where you care about the characters and build an emotional connection with them and the game.

I dont even... Wat?

Its been like this for decades...

Damsel in distress is an age-old trope, but it seems that since the girls can now be heroes too, young girls are easier to use in this. It also won't annoy certain groups who hate to see girls as just damsels in distress with no ability to change anything.

So many lolicon devs out there I guess xD

Protecting a girl is old. Resident Evil 4, Ico, plenty of games over the years.

Uhm... Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite is 19 years old, is a weird concept of "little girl".

Other than The Last Of Us and The Walking Dead i don't really recall any recent game that has a underage female character in the main cast.

"what would garner a better response from male gamers than a girl that needs protecting?"

Actually, in TWD Season 2, you're Clem.

Games and movies hardly ever do females right. In either one, women/girls are completely helpless and utterly useless (which offends people). Or they are overly powerful, obnoxiously vulgar, and completely unreal (which may take away for some people). Rarely, do they portray a female correctly (which I would think would be just like a normal guy as opposed to the shit they keep coming up with).

At first I thought this to be a bit creepy, but then I played a few japanese games and concluded that all is right as of now. Seriously, a guy is trying to hit on the main character of Fairy Bloom Freesia, who's in her early teens, and the game gratifies that. It's not like, there's a whole adult woman character whom he could have something going on with... oh wait, there is and he says "fuck it, I'll take the child".

Anyways, what you're talking about is not a new thing, and young women were always around in games. Think back to Beyond Good And Evil; I don't think Jade was much more than a late teen in there, and honestly, Lara Croft and Elizabeth aren't complete kids either. Then there's others like Rule of Rose, Fatal Frame 2, and possibly other older games with young girls as leads. Or how about Persona 4, with lots of main playable teen girl characters (mind you, it's a japanese game with high-schooler girls you can date and it's not creepy - gotta give it credit there). But there's also Resident Evil 4 which let you to play as Ashley for a short while, or there's my favourite part of Sanitarium where the main character morphs into his little sister, reliving a traumatic event. I don't think the recent load of lead "little girl" characters is anything more than a coincidence, let alone an obsession.

I don't remember any young girls in the Tomb Raider reboot. Do you mean Lara? Because she strikes me as post-teens.

Then again, I also don't see Elizabeth in Infinite as a "young girl." She's far enough into her teens for the designers to shove her boobs in your face. She's a young adult, not a young girl. Her application, though, is akin to those in Last of Us and Walking Dead.

I'm not surprised at the actual young girls in Last of Us and The Walking Dead. Those games leverage the vulnerability of the younger characters, and feel very strongly influenced by Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But what's the easiest way to not seem like a The Road ripoff? And score feminist points? Make the kid a girl instead of a boy. And it works. Both games have great characterization and relationship writing.

Touhou is popular and all it has is little girls.

Recent?

More like millenary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M244NIfpmxg 0:00-0:03

Based on my Skyrim experience I would say, if you put young girls in a game, you better allow me to kill them, because sometimes they are just too annoying to do anything else.

Recent obsession? That's been nearly a constant since gaming has existed.

I think they are catering to pedos

I honestly don't see a problem with this.

Is there a problem with having little vulnerable girls in your games? They work perfectly fine as game mechanics and developed characters.

Thought this was about loli, was mistaken.

Not to mention many indie games putting half naked girls on the cover page to get our attention.

Edit: Oh and there is a mask called Kawaii in Payday 2, it seems to be quite popular. Nothing beats robbing a bank with a cute mask like that.

Nah.

It's not recent.