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#YesAllGamergate (Page 2)
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OreoCookie
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Nov 4, 2014, 09:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The homicidal maniac mass-murderer as exclusively male is a stereotype society no longer accepts? I assume that's not what you're saying, so that means I'm probably stupid. Break it down for a stupid person like myself.
I wasn't just referring to GTA, but many, many games are written with a white, heterosexual, male player in mind who is a few decades behind. (I (mis?)took your comment to include other games as well.)
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
"less and less acceptable"? Must be why GTA:V broke so many sales records. I don't play it, or even allow it in my home, but Sarkessian is deluded if she thinks that strong masculine themes in games (or media as a whole) are on the decline.
I don't think she has claimed that misogyny is on the decline, she is criticizing that these themes are prevalent in most common games.
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Nov 4, 2014, 09:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
They exist elsewhere but not as prominently.
I don't think this is true. Yes, you're right that the GTA series is particularly bad (You can use hookers to recover your health, really? And kill them afterwards with impunity?), but the majority of games features women as accessories, the proverbial damsel in distress, leave out homosexuality, etc.
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subego  (op)
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Nov 4, 2014, 01:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I wasn't just referring to GTA, but many, many games are written with a white, heterosexual, male player in mind who is a few decades behind. (I (mis?)took your comment to include other games as well.)
Yeah. The genre I was talking about is gangster(sta).

And this is where the equality angle gets sticky. In my book, that RL gangsters(stas) are almost never women is a plus in the women column, and not something we should necessarily strive to be gender neutral about.
     
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Nov 4, 2014, 04:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I don't think this is true.
I meant in the GTA series. There are side missions involving females and female bit characters as family members, but you see those less often than the hookers.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
leave out homosexuality, etc.
Hilariously enough, I can't think of another AAA title that has had a prominently featured legitimate homosexual character like The Ballad of Gay Tony.
     
subego  (op)
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Nov 4, 2014, 05:08 PM
 
Did that need to be in the game? No. It serves little purpose from a game mechanics standpoint. The vibe I've always gotten from it is that it's a gag. It's meant purely (and pueriley) as a joke in poor taste.

That said, the joke is being told in the context of the exploits of a psychotic mass-murderer... protagonist. Of the (literally) thousands of utterly contemptible things you can do in this game, a couple crossed a line they didn't need to.
     
The Final Dakar
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Nov 4, 2014, 05:28 PM
 
Everyone in the game is disposable, not just hookers. In GTA V people figured out that when you call for a ride from a Heli you can just kill the pilot and steal the copter. Same goes for taxi drivers.
     
subego  (op)
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Nov 4, 2014, 05:40 PM
 
The game didn't even need to tell me what to do with a perch, a park full of people, and the ability to get my hands on a sniper rifle.
     
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Nov 4, 2014, 09:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Hilariously enough, I can't think of another AAA title that has had a prominently featured legitimate homosexual character like The Ballad of Gay Tony.
This right here is the real issue: male characters in games are incredibly diverse, while female characters rarely more than a small handful of worn out tropes.

EDIT: When the most famous male character in video games is a plump plummer in over-alls and a porn 'stache, and the most famous female character is Indiana Jones with boobs, you know there's issues with lack of female diversity; even the female characters are really males!
     
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Nov 4, 2014, 11:40 PM
 
It's okay - they gave her really huge boobs just so you're sure she's female.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 01:20 AM
 
Lara Croft has big boobs? The old one? Hell yeah. The latest? Not so much.
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:29 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
EDIT: When the most famous male character in video games is a plump plummer in over-alls and a porn 'stache, and the most famous female character is Indiana Jones with boobs, you know there's issues with lack of female diversity; even the female characters are really males!
This is my beef with Sarkeesian right here.

You don't need to look far to find egregious examples of the problems she wants to highlight. You have one right here.

Perhaps I've misjudged her, but everything I've seen gives me the impression she gins the shit up. As I said earlier, the developers of GTA deserve to be taken to task, but it's complicated. You can't really address this without getting into philosophical debate about the entertainment value of being utterly evil in a video game.

I get the distinct impression she discarded the complexities in favor of capitalizing (literally) on the extreme nature of the example.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 06:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Hilariously enough, I can't think of another AAA title that has had a prominently featured legitimate homosexual character like The Ballad of Gay Tony.
Just about every Bioware game since Knights of the old Republic ten years ago. Borderlands, at least the new one and I think 2 (never played the first). Fallout: NV. That's just off the top of my head.
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
This is my beef with Sarkeesian right here.

You don't need to look far to find egregious examples of the problems she wants to highlight. You have one right here.

Perhaps I've misjudged her, but everything I've seen gives me the impression she gins the shit up. As I said earlier, the developers of GTA deserve to be taken to task, but it's complicated. You can't really address this without getting into philosophical debate about the entertainment value of being utterly evil in a video game.

I get the distinct impression she discarded the complexities in favor of capitalizing (literally) on the extreme nature of the example.
So what you're saying is that she's like every other media commentator out there?

(Actually I think that she hurts her own cause, because the game developers she needs to affect are the most likely to see through her attempts to "gin shit up" as you say and just turn it off, but she is hardly unusual.)
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Nov 5, 2014, 11:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I get the distinct impression she discarded the complexities in favor of capitalizing (literally) on the extreme nature of the example.
What bugs me the most is that, when interviewed, she can't say very many specific things about the games that she's supposedly played. She's trying to make a living, and a reputation, by picking the low-hanging fruit, and she's said almost nothing that couldn't be cleaned from a 30 minute Google search of other reviewers. It very much appears that she bought, and/or gathered, a bunch of retail game boxes (for promo shots) and then collected impressions from everyone else, and then has tried to pass it all off as her own wholly original "investigative" work. Bleh.
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Nov 5, 2014, 01:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Perhaps I've misjudged her, but everything I've seen gives me the impression she gins the shit up. As I said earlier, the developers of GTA deserve to be taken to task, but it's complicated. You can't really address this without getting into philosophical debate about the entertainment value of being utterly evil in a video game.
I don't understand what you're saying: Sarkeesian does not limit her criticism to the extreme games, just think of Super Mario World where Mario has to save the princess (the damsel in distress theme) or early incarnations of Tomb Raider where the hero had triple-D assets. The prevalence of these male-oriented themes is pretty obvious to me (despite the fact that women are playing more games than men), you don't have to go to extremes, and in the videos of her I have watched, she doesn't focus on a single game (e. g. GTA).
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The Final Dakar
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Nov 5, 2014, 01:52 PM
 
Not on consoles.
     
OreoCookie
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Nov 5, 2014, 02:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Not on consoles.
… which would change if you created more games for that audience -- it's a big market which is being ignored. That's where female game developers go against the grain of people who self-identify as gamers: they bring a different perspective to the table and making other types of games more popular, thereby changing what a gamer is. But this is no different than what has happened before: when I was young, only (male) nerds played on the computer. Then average guys started playing on the computer, i. e. a niche was »infiltrated from the outside«. The next big wave will be women.

Just need to look at Japan, my girlfriend, for instance, plays way more than I do. One difference is that in Japan there are games (for men and women) which are aimed more towards emotional aspects, whole genres of games which are not (yet) mainstream outside of Japan. (Although I must admit that some of these games can be quite creepy, and some of their games are among the most sexist I have seen. But at least they also have versions for women …)
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Nov 5, 2014, 02:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Just need to look at Japan, my girlfriend, for instance, plays way more than I do. One difference is that in Japan there are games (for men and women) which are aimed more towards emotional aspects, whole genres of games which are not (yet) mainstream outside of Japan. (Although I must admit that some of these games can be quite creepy, and some of their games are among the most sexist I have seen. But at least they also have versions for women …)
Let me guess… mobile? Consoles are dead in Japan.

Which is not to say that developers shouldn't try to make games for women on consoles, but publishers fall short of male gamers desires, let alone females. Can those games your GF is playing sell for $60 on a consoles? I doubt it.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 02:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Let me guess… mobile? Consoles are dead in Japan.
No, not really. The DS is extremely popular and my gf misses her Playstation (not sure which one she had). This trend has little to do with mobile gaming, it has existed 10 years ago already when I lived there the first time -- way before there was »mobile gaming« (which I read as gaming on a smartphone). And if you want to go on a date, an arcade is a great choice: you pay once and get all you can play on all sorts of games, from Pac Man to pistol shooting games (which my gf loves).
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Which is not to say that developers shouldn't try to make games for women on consoles, but publishers fall short of male gamers desires, let alone females. Can those games your GF is playing sell for $60 on a consoles? I doubt it.
Yes, in Japan these games cost as much as any other game you can play -- and I don't need to tell you that there is a huge gaming market in Japan. (Although there is a big niche of collectors who actually don't play that much.)

The myopia from the game development world is that it's mostly a bunch of white heterosexual men who are writing games from their perspective -- even though I am sure that for many this is not a conscious decision.
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The Final Dakar
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Nov 5, 2014, 02:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
No, not really. The DS is extremely popular and my gf misses her Playstation (not sure which one she had). This trend has little to do with mobile gaming, it has existed 10 years ago already when I lived there the first time -- way before there was »mobile gaming« (which I read as gaming on a smartphone). And if you want to go on a date, an arcade is a great choice: you pay once and get all you can play on all sorts of games, from Pac Man to pistol shooting games (which my gf loves).
I should have been more explicit. Handhelds are not consoles – I'm well aware the handheld market is still huge. I have a feeling its a cultural phenomenon of commuting on public transportation.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
The myopia from the game development world is that it's mostly a bunch of white heterosexual men who are writing games from their perspective -- even though I am sure that for many this is not a conscious decision.
The myopia is that publishers won't front cash on an unknown. The mirror between how the movie industry and the gaming industry are run is amazing.

Look at something like Mirror's Edge. Not a success, but has a following that desperately wants a sequel it may never get. Because unless it's AAA it's not worth making. And unless it'll move 5+ million units, it's not worth selling.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 02:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I should have been more explicit. Handhelds are not consoles – I'm well aware the handheld market is still huge. I have a feeling its a cultural phenomenon of commuting on public transportation.
But the popularity is not limited to handhelds -- although you are right, handhelds are certainly very popular because most people commute by public transportation. You have a lot of games which appeal to both, men and women, or just one of the two sexes. It's the same with comic books: there are whole lines of comic books which are specifically aimed at girls and (adult) women.
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
The myopia is that publishers won't front cash on an unknown. The mirror between how the movie industry and the gaming industry are run is amazing.
Sure, that's an explanation of the status quo. But that doesn't mean the status quo can be criticized and through public attention these companies can be convinced to go in new directions. And what's more, you'll have an even harder time to convince the big wigs if all of them have the perspective of white, middle-aged men to whom certain types of games just don't make sense.
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Look at something like Mirror's Edge. Not a success, but has a following that desperately wants a sequel it may never get. Because unless it's AAA it's not worth making. And unless it'll move 5+ million units, it's not worth selling.
Especially for those triple-A titles the inclusion of women (~50 % of the population) would help in the monetization!
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subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I don't understand what you're saying: Sarkeesian does not limit her criticism to the extreme games, just think of Super Mario World where Mario has to save the princess (the damsel in distress theme) or early incarnations of Tomb Raider where the hero had triple-D assets. The prevalence of these male-oriented themes is pretty obvious to me (despite the fact that women are playing more games than men), you don't have to go to extremes, and in the videos of her I have watched, she doesn't focus on a single game (e. g. GTA).
The example I saw, which I'm extrapolating to her analysis of GTA, was a bit on the game Hitman. There's a mission in a strip club. The strip club has strippers in it. Like every other human in the game you can kill them. Like every dead body in the game, you can stuff it in a box. The game penalizes you for it. Your job is to kill your target, not civilians.

The strippers are there for you to sneak past. That's the point of the game. You're a stealthy assassin, not someone on a rampage.

Sarkeesian, who shows you kicking stripper corpses, dragging their lifeless bodies and stuffing them in a box, says this is what the game encourages you to do.

Similarly to GTA, I'm not even saying this can't be called to task. NPCs get killed in this game. Do we need bikini clad stripper ones for the game to function properly? No. Do we need a mission in a strip club or we get complaints of the game having a low titty-bar quotient? No.

I can lodge those complaints without lying.
     
The Final Dakar
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Sure, that's an explanation of the status quo. But that doesn't mean the status quo can be criticized and through public attention these companies can be convinced to go in new directions.
SOrry, I wasn't defending the status quo. I was pointing out that women shouldn't feel too victimized by the white male driven industry when its failing to cater to some of their desires as well.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Especially for those triple-A titles the inclusion of women (~50 % of the population) would help in the monetization!
I feel like this might be relevant:
Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don't want largely female audiences
DINI: "They're all for boys 'we do not want the girls', I mean, I've heard executives say this, you know, not [where I am] but at other places, saying like, 'We do not want girls watching this show."

SMITH: "WHY? That's 51% of the population."

DINI: "They. Do. Not. Buy. Toys. The girls buy different toys. The girls may watch the show—"
DINI: "And then that's why they cancelled us, and they put on a show called Level Up, which is, you know, goofy nerds fighting CG monsters. It's like, 'We don't want the girls because the girls won't buy toys.' We had a whole… we had a whole, a merchandise line for Tower Prep that they s***canned before it ever got off the launching pad, because it's like, 'Boys, boys, boys. Boys buy the little spinny tops, they but the action figures, girls buy princesses, we're not selling princesses.'"
Pretty galling. ALl it's going to take is for someone to show the industry that money can be made of girls and it's not a Wii-like phenomenon.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The example I saw, which I'm extrapolating to her analysis of GTA, was a bit on the game Hitman. There's a mission in a strip club. The strip club has strippers in it. Like every other human in the game you can kill them. Like every dead body in the game, you can stuff it in a box. The game penalizes you for it. Your job is to kill your target, not civilians.
Her point isn't that you can kill the strippers if you choose to, her main thrust of criticism is that women appear in this game as weak characters (e. g. strippers who are selling themselves). That you can kill them (just like most NPCs in the game) just adds insult to injury.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I can lodge those complaints without lying.
No, but you're completely missing the larger picture: she is trying to show a pattern, and you're concerned about one single particular example. You can always argue about the details (just like you did: killing hookers is not a mission objective in Hitman), but the pattern is clear as day.
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:27 PM
 
I'll repeat myself:

Her claim is the game "encourages" you to do this. That's a quote. This is not true, and therefore not valid. What concerns me about (and why I focus on) the example is its falsehood.

The points you're making about the game: totally valid.


My thesis: Sarkeesian harms her cause by making invalid points when there are scores of valid ones to be made. Such as the ones you make above.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
SOrry, I wasn't defending the status quo. I was pointing out that women shouldn't feel too victimized by the white male driven industry when its failing to cater to some of their desires as well.
That's a non-sequitor for me: why shouldn't feel women disadvantaged by the current situation? Maybe the movie and game industry are not catering a particular niche among their male customers, they're doing a far, far worse job when it comes to women.
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
… and if you don't want an audience, well, you'll do a hard time to get them. (Thanks for the link.)

We've heard this time and again in all sorts of situations: more than one female act on a concert tour? Ridiculous … until Lillith Fair. And that way of thinking also gives birth to some of the worst products for women (~50 % of the market), e. g. where all you do is take a mediocre model from your line-up and offer it in pink or other »female« colors.
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Her claim is the game "encourages" you to do this. That's a quote. This is not true, and therefore not valid.
I still feel you're nitpicking a very, very tiny piece to try and invalidate her larger argument (which I think is completely valid).
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That's a non-sequitor for me: why shouldn't feel women disadvantaged by the current situation? Maybe the movie and game industry are not catering a particular niche among their male customers, they're doing a far, far worse job when it comes to women.
I didn't say disadvantaged, I said victimized. The industry is so narrow-minded they avoid making games for a known quantity.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I still feel you're nitpicking a very, very tiny piece to try and invalidate her larger argument (which I think is completely valid).
Which is why I said the points you made about the game are totally valid.

It's all part of my sneaky plan to invalidate her larger argument.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:48 PM
 
God, some of you ****ing whine too much. Just reading this crap gives me a headache. Shouldn't this be in the pol lounge since it's such a polarized topic and so annoyingly stupid?

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Nov 5, 2014, 04:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by pooka View Post
God, some of you ****ing whine too much. Just reading this crap gives me a headache. Shouldn't this be in the pol lounge since it's such a polarized topic and so annoyingly stupid?
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 04:52 PM
 
The B&W is a nice touch

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The Final Dakar
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:01 PM
 
Wish I could say it was a conscious choice.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
her main thrust of criticism is that women appear in this game as weak characters (e. g. strippers who are selling themselves).
Yeah, it's not like we have areas in every major US city that are like that... right? Showing strippers in a game about organized crime is so out there.

There's "weakness" in selling lap dances and showing flesh for money? Pat Robertson, is that you? In every strip club I've visited, which are more than I care to count, the women are in control and the men are the "weak" ones, giving them money, hand over fist, just to be noticed. As long as they can stay drug-free, drama-free, and in good shape, an attractive woman can make a hell of a living doing it. The self-righteous BS from Sarkeesian is galling. So much for real feminism, where a woman can be strong no matter what she chooses to do with her life, it has to be a role that she, and others like her, deems worthy.
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Laminar
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:14 PM
 
I assume that Candy Crush counts.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Her point isn't that you can kill the strippers if you choose to, her main thrust of criticism is that women appear in this game as weak characters (e. g. strippers who are selling themselves). That you can kill them (just like most NPCs in the game) just adds insult to injury.

No, but you're completely missing the larger picture: she is trying to show a pattern, and you're concerned about one single particular example. You can always argue about the details (just like you did: killing hookers is not a mission objective in Hitman), but the pattern is clear as day.
No, you're wrong. Sorry, but you are. This is the problem well-informed people have with Anita's videos.

She says that "you" (the person) can act out against these women and that's why they're there in the game, so that you (the person) can act out your violence using video games. That's not why the game was created. The fact that weak women are in the game is not the point to the argument that *I* (the player) am not playing Hitman to kill weak women..

EDIT: You've actually proven my point. Before Anita's video, you didn't think of Hitman as "the game you can kill two hookers in", did you? Nope. Now everyone thinks of the game that way, and that's not what the game was designed for. But now Hitman is seen as a mysoginistic fantasy world. Anita did that, not me, not the designers.

Just like she says that Zelda gets captured in Ocarina of Time and that's a trope. Yes, but she completely neglects that the kidnapping was a ruse to become Sheik. The kidnapping was done to fool Ganondorf. She doesn't really talk about THAT point, does she? Nope. And that's why people have problems with her videos.

I don't like Anita's videos because she talks to the audience like we're all stupid. That's why she gets flack. She doesn't offer any solutions to the problem (how would YOU market an 8-bit yellow female dot in 1983?). Also, she doesn't take any of that $170,000 and get on a plane to interview one, single person. It's not because she's a woman, not because she's making a statement, it's because her videos are irresponsible.

Her cause is fine, her methods are sloppy. Like Venkman.

One last EDIT: I feel insulted by Anita's videos because she talked to the audience like *I* have some sick fantasy about killing women and that *I* enjoy these kinds of games. I don't. I realize that some people do, but lumping all men into a category the way she does, well, she's doing the same thing to men that she says men are doing to women.
( Last edited by starman; Nov 5, 2014 at 05:43 PM. )

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pooka
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:33 PM
 
God ****ing bless starman

I can peacefully return to whore island now.

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The Final Dakar
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Nov 5, 2014, 05:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by pooka View Post
I can peacefully return to whore island now.
Try not to murder any of them to get your money back!
     
subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 06:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Yeah, it's not like we have areas in every major US city that are like that... right? Showing strippers in a game about organized crime is so out there.
To put it another way, criminals are, by definition, thumbing their nose at the boundaries society has set up. A professional murderer might just not give a **** they're sexist.

I do believe there's value to dancing around this in fiction, but "there will be social benefit to this work lacking verisimilitude" isn't an easy sell. Certainly not so easy the tactic I would use is shame.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
There's "weakness" in selling lap dances and showing flesh for money? Pat Robertson, is that you? In every strip club I've visited, which are more than I care to count, the women are in control and the men are the "weak" ones, giving them money, hand over fist, just to be noticed. As long as they can stay drug-free, drama-free, and in good shape, an attractive woman can make a hell of a living doing it. The self-righteous BS from Sarkeesian is galling. So much for real feminism, where a woman can be strong no matter what she chooses to do with her life, it has to be a role that she, and others like her, deems worthy.
I did freelance work in a strip club for a (horribly depressing) week. The ones in control were definitely the mob guys running the place. The drama was inescapable.
     
OreoCookie
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Nov 5, 2014, 06:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
I assume that Candy Crush counts.
Sure, and?
Originally Posted by starman View Post
She says that "you" (the person) can act out against these women and that's why they're there in the game, so that you (the person) can act out your violence using video games. That's not why the game was created. The fact that weak women are in the game is not the point to the argument that *I* (the player) am not playing Hitman to kill weak women..
She has a different point of view from yours -- and , and your argument »that the game wasn't created for that«/»she doesn't really understand the game« is weak: you feel insulted by what she says, because it implies your penchant for these games is misogynistic.
Originally Posted by starman View Post
EDIT: You've actually proven my point. Before Anita's video, you didn't think of Hitman as "the game you can kill two hookers in", did you? Nope. Now everyone thinks of the game that way, and that's not what the game was designed for.
When I played Hitman, Duke Nukem II (the first 3d version) or watch certain animes (where you get gratuitous panty and boob shots) with my significant other, these aspects did creep me out before and they still do. Claiming that I thought differently before is putting words into my mouth. Although I do admit that I wasn't as aware of the attitude towards women implicit many games as after she brought it up. And I also admit that overall I enjoyed several games (e. g. Deus Ex Revolution) that have been criticized.
Originally Posted by starman View Post
I don't like Anita's videos because she talks to the audience like we're all stupid. That's why she gets flack. She doesn't offer any solutions to the problem (how would YOU market an 8-bit yellow female dot in 1983?).
Pointing out a problem and suggesting solutions are two different things.
Originally Posted by starman View Post
Also, she doesn't take any of that $170,000 and get on a plane to interview one, single person. It's not because she's a woman, not because she's making a statement, it's because her videos are irresponsible.
Her videos are irresponsible? Really? Now you've lost me: you don't need to agree with her opinion (you obviously don't), but how are her videos are irresponsible? People voluntarily gave her money to do more videos on women in video games. Which she did. You don't like them, but that doesn't mean they are irresponsible.
Originally Posted by starman View Post
One last EDIT: I feel insulted by Anita's videos because she talked to the audience like *I* have some sick fantasy about killing women and that *I* enjoy these kinds of games. I don't. I realize that some people do, but lumping all men into a category the way she does, well, she's doing the same thing to men that she says men are doing to women.
Here we have something that I can agree on: that's why you and many other self-identified gamers have the reaction they do. And instead of reflecting on whether she has a larger point you're lashing out. Some other people (and I don't want to lump them together with you) go further and send death threats.
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starman
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Nov 5, 2014, 06:23 PM
 
Pointing out flaws in her argument doesn't mean I'm "lashing out".

As for her videos being irresponsible, I posted three points to that.

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subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:28 PM
 
@Oreo

How would you describe saying the game encourages you to do something it doesn't encourage you to do? That's not a "lack of understanding"?

Do you not think the (correct) observation "Hitman is an engine by which one can enact vile misogynist fantasies" is better served by stating it in those terms, rather than the falsehood this is its purpose?
     
starman
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:36 PM
 
Let me put Anita's videos in MacNN terms:

It's like if she came here, saw the color scheme was blue, and said that blue is generally a male-dominated color, and MacNN must exclude women because of it, and everyone here is mysoginistic.

That sums up Anita's "logic".

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Laminar
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:47 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Sure, and?
I think it's a fact that deserves consideration. I don't want to get into a "true gamer" argument, but the type of person that preorders a $60+ AAA title on the latest console and the type of person that plays Candy Crush or Words with Friends while they're bored on the elevator should not be lumped into same "gamer" category.

When you're trying to complain about how high budget AAA titles often have male-oriented themes, you can't use the fact that females like playing Farmville on their iPhones as a valid point. If you're going to complain about tropes in a specific genre, use demographics of that genre.
     
subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:51 PM
 
I can't believe you used the F-word.
     
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Nov 5, 2014, 08:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I did freelance work in a strip club for a (horribly depressing) week. The ones in control were definitely the mob guys running the place. The drama was inescapable.
There are bad clubs, but not all clubs are.
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subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 09:10 PM
 
No question. However I get the impression the sketchy ones outnumber the upstanding ones.
     
OreoCookie
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Nov 5, 2014, 09:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
I think it's a fact that deserves consideration. I don't want to get into a "true gamer" argument, but the type of person that preorders a $60+ AAA title on the latest console and the type of person that plays Candy Crush or Words with Friends while they're bored on the elevator should not be lumped into same "gamer" category.
What is and isn't a gamer is ultimately decided by oneself. Even though I have (honestly) never played Candy Crush, it's a game that has literally made billions in revenue. How many other games can say that about themselves. And I understand why enthusiasts would sneer at Candy Crush-type games, saying they're not »real« games. You see the mistake here is not to think that Candy Crush isn't a real game, the misconception is how many people who play computer games self-identify as »gamers« -- a very small minority.
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
When you're trying to complain about how high budget AAA titles often have male-oriented themes, you can't use the fact that females like playing Farmville on their iPhones as a valid point.
You're flipping cause and effect: there is no significant market for AAA titles among women, because all of the existing ones feature male-oriented these. »Gaming« (as in playing games) has become main stream main stream, and nowadays you would never claim that there isn't a significant market amongst women for AAA movies, right?
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
If you're going to complain about tropes in a specific genre, use demographics of that genre.
I don't even think it's a proper representation of the demographics of that genre anymore: AAA titles need millions of sales to be profitable. And certain things are becoming less and less acceptable (like using racial slurs in public or defame black people).
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OreoCookie
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Nov 5, 2014, 10:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
How would you describe saying the game encourages you to do something it doesn't encourage you to do? That's not a "lack of understanding"?
If I understand what you're getting at, you're claiming it's like with violence in games: lots of people play violent games, but that doesn't mean gamers develop a propensity for violence. (Correct me if I misunderstand, though.)

To that I answer: look what has happened! Women got death threats, they had to leave their home and cancel public appearances. Over an opinion which they published on the internet. On video games. You may rightfully point out that it's a vocal minority which is responsible for it, but the reason why gamergate is even a thing is not because some self-identified gamers disagree with people like Sarkeesian, it's how they do it. And that women get singled out for being a target. I don't think you can leave this out of the discussion.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Do you not think the (correct) observation "Hitman is an engine by which one can enact vile misogynist fantasies" is better served by stating it in those terms, rather than the falsehood this is its purpose?
Let's be honest here: you (and I, I was playing one incarnation of Hitman, too) are playing a killer, you are indulging in a fantasy where your job is to murder people. That doesn't mean we have the urge to murder people in real life. But the game does offer you the opportunity to »enact vile (misogynist or not) phantasies« -- even though as a stealth-based game, you're not meant to kill everyone. But you really have to get into the mindset of Sarkeesian and other women to understand what is going on: people who have played Hitman (e. g. you or me) have certain images in their minds when we play, we understand the game mechanic, the way it should be played because the game creator thought similarly to us. Women have a different perception of the situations that are displayed, and while you're claiming that they misunderstand the intention of the game/the gameplay, it's really a side effect of women's views on reality. The abstract idea of being threatened has happened to Sarkeesian in real life, and that shapes the way you perceive reality and games. To me, the important point is not whether Sarkeesian's perception about the game itself is wrong, but rather the perception itself.

The world is very different for women than it is for men, and if you don't try to walk in the other sexes' shoes, it'll be hard to understand. Like the actress who was in the video where she got hit on ~100 times -- also she receives death threats just for that.
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subego  (op)
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Nov 5, 2014, 10:20 PM
 
I'll get to the second half later, but you misunderstand my first point.

I'm saying the game penalizes you for using it to enact misogynist fantasies. The designer does not merely hope you don't use it for that, their desires in this regard are reflected in concrete game mechanics.
     
 
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