ANITA SARKEESIAN: This advertising strategy of using women and representations of women as decorative elements to try and sell games to boys and men soon became the norm for the burgeoning industry. In ad after ad throughout the '80s and '90s, we see women placed on display alongside arcade games, conflating the two and presenting them both as toys to be played with. In these promotional materials, advertisers are not just selling a product. They're also selling gaming as a lifestyle in which women predominantly exist as passive objects of heterosexual male desire.

These ads contributed to an emergent culture in which women were thought of as ornamental and peripheral to a male gaming experience. And since women were largely already seen as incidental eye candy, it's not surprising that when female characters started being introduced to more game worlds, their roles tended to follow similar patterns. The practice of using hypersexualized women as ornamental objects has been especially brazen in the racing game genre. Notice how the camera moves-- how it focuses on and zooms in on specific body parts to highlight the aspects of women meant to be the most important.

MAN: I knew you couldn't resist, yo!

ANITA SARKEESIAN: I define the women as background decoration trope in games as the subset of largely insignificant, nonplayable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds.