Another thread about sexism in video games.

[BrawlMan]

I've been saying for quite a while in other threads that a lot of the for lack of a better term virtue signalling has been used to deflect from or cover up actual abuses in the industry..........

Not really. Only when your back was against the wall or after the fact you might have said or add something to it. Otherwise you just extended the goal post, did your usual whataboutisn, or brought in something that had nothing to do with anything. Don't know who you trying to convince, but it ain't me.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

A. thats unrelated to my point.
B. booby armor is hardly taking risks
C. Not really

I mean Gyrobot has a point I think.

For AAA devs now if they make a sexy female character they get yelled at so it is a risk. Unless you're Japanese in which case you don't give a fuck what the weird westerners think half the time. You don't want the headache and the ResetEra threads and masses of emails from people and masses of people contacting devs who worked on the game calling them supporters of rape and part of the problem in this industry. Thus we won't get sexy outfits again in games until a studio takes that risk and pulls in major money for them doing it.

The aim of modern AAA is absolute mass appeal games so they're not going to be willing to potentially offend anyone, unless it's a Japanese studio because they're not in the min max game just in the "It made money so it's all good" game mostly these days after their attempts at Mass Appeal games have fallen flat consistently.

To put it into perspective modern mass appeal would be the Amazon Show The Wheel of Time while games made just cause they wanted to and risking it would be Game of Thrones (which again was a big risk because it was plenty of stuff that would put people off rolled into one program not bland trying to avoid offending anyone).

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Wrong. I think this is a problem, but its a problem that can be solved. We just have to be able to identify if its still a problem, if someone is dredging up games from 20 years ago to make a point that its still an issue instead of giving historical context for their argument then they are making a bad argument, but if they point out examples from the last few years where is happening then its still probably an issue.

No there's no incentive to solve it for professional activists. Just incentive to say you have the solution and people just need to pay you more to achieve it. When you whole income pretty much relies on it there's little incentive to move to a solution and not merely find more problems. It's worth noting with Anita she praised Beyond Good and Evil for having a non sexualised female character on the games cover but chastised Remember Me for having it's lead be too sexualised.




(sorry for imgur links the forum didn't like me attaching them for some reason)

The issue is also industry trend and shouldn't be laser focussing on individual games which tends to be how it's done these days too as there really aren't that many examples and so they have to laser focus in on certain titles and go basically "The whole industry is like this believe me it's part of a pervasive insidious trend" and it's often reliant on people believing it because their either don't actually know any better (E.G. people like the infamous "If Nintendo doesn't make Zelda a girl in the next game I'm done with the franchise" person) or they go along with it thinking they're doing good but potentially not really aware that they got played by some-one who used manipulative advertising techniques to convince them of something we all know isn't the reality of the issue.

(BTW I deliberately put one of the advertising techniques into that last paragraph you just read, can you spot it people reading this?)

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Not really. Only when your back was against the wall or after the fact you might have said or add something to it. Otherwise you just extended the goal post, did your usual whataboutisn, or brought in something that had nothing to do with anything. Don't know who you trying to convince, but it ain't me.

I literally called out the fact Matt Hickey was one of the journalist who pushed the Microsoft dancers story and is now a convicted serial rapist in this very thread........This whole "Oh you're only doing it because you're back against the wall" what wall? Are you seriously getting pissy because I've pointed this stuff out and it wasn't you getting to do so thus you have to try and present it as some sinister ulterior motive on my part that I dunno I'm just trying to stop these complies great work or something by suggesting the actions aren't genuine but are virtual signalling to cover stuff up?

 

[BrawlMan]

I literally called out the fact Matt Hickey was one of the journalist who pushed the Microsoft dancers story and is now a convicted serial rapist in this very thread........This whole "Oh you're only doing it because you're back against the wall" what wall? Are you seriously getting pissy because I've pointed this stuff out and it wasn't you getting to do so thus you have to try and present it as some sinister ulterior motive on my part that I dunno I'm just trying to stop these complies great work or something by suggesting the actions aren't genuine but are virtual signalling to cover stuff up?

I don't know why you're asking all these questions. You already gave your answers a long time ago. If the boot fits. You're the one giving me the fussy attitude.

As that news relating to Matt, I don't know much about, but I will give you credit for. Now I wish you just do the same for all the other stories on certain things, you might get some. You can figure out what I'm referring to. Tata.

 

[Worgen]

I mean Gyrobot has a point I think.

For AAA devs now if they make a sexy female character they get yelled at so it is a risk. Unless you're Japanese in which case you don't give a fuck what the weird westerners think half the time. You don't want the headache and the ResetEra threads and masses of emails from people and masses of people contacting devs who worked on the game calling them supporters of rape and part of the problem in this industry. Thus we won't get sexy outfits again in games until a studio takes that risk and pulls in major money for them doing it.

The aim of modern AAA is absolute mass appeal games so they're not going to be willing to potentially offend anyone, unless it's a Japanese studio because they're not in the min max game just in the "It made money so it's all good" game mostly these days after their attempts at Mass Appeal games have fallen flat consistently.

To put it into perspective modern mass appeal would be the Amazon Show The Wheel of Time while games made just cause they wanted to and risking it would be Game of Thrones (which again was a big risk because it was plenty of stuff that would put people off rolled into one program not bland trying to avoid offending anyone).

Not really. The most risk adverse publisher/dev is Nintendo (at least till bayonetta 2, kinda) and they are doing fine and have been for a very long time.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Not really. The most risk adverse publisher/dev is Nintendo (at least till bayonetta 2, kinda) and they are doing fine and have been for a very long time.

I disagree, while Nintendo may not take much risk in it's game department. They are rather risky with their hardware. The Wii, Wii-U, and Switch were all very experimental systems that went for a niche market rather than trying to compete on a graphical power level with Microsoft and Sony. They take risks, it's just in different ways.

 

[Gyrobot]

Not really. The most risk adverse publisher/dev is Nintendo (at least till bayonetta 2, kinda) and they are doing fine and have been for a very long time.

I was thinking EA or Activision. When was the last time we had the shameless kind of pandering found in say...FGO

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Never. The goal post will always be moved to account for some other injustice. There are shitloads of non-sexuallized women throughout gaming history, but they don't count if they aren't the main character and star of the show. So you point out characters now coming out that don't have that problem, and it's not good enough because men still dominate the main character space.

Nobody who believes this is a problem is looking for a completion point. They are always looking for problems and will say whatever they need to say in order to make sure there is always a problem.

Uhh, I mean, you said yourself that men are still dominating the main character space. So...yeah, problem still not solved.

And you're right, there's never a completion point on "better": because there's no such thing as perfect. Media is always evolving, and that's a good thing. Stagnation is death. Always criticize flaws

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I was thinking EA or Activision. When was the last time we had the shameless kind of pandering found in say...FGO

EA and Activision *love* shameless pandering, it's just not exclusively sexual. But you are right in the sense that their target audience isn't exclusively horny weebs.

 

[Worgen]

I disagree, while Nintendo may not take much risk in it's game department. They are rather risky with their hardware. The Wii, Wii-U, and Switch were all very experimental systems that went for a niche market rather than trying to compete on a graphical power level with Microsoft and Sony. They take risks, it's just in different ways.

I think a lot of the hardware stuff is more about Nintendo wanting to maintain their hardware business and refusing to sell a machine at a loss, unlike the other 2 manufacturers.

I was thinking EA or Activision. When was the last time we had the shameless kind of pandering found in say...FGO

Ad campaign for Dead Space 2 springs to mind. "Your mom will hate this game."

 

[CriticalGaming]

Uhh, I mean, you said yourself that men are still dominating the main character space. So...yeah, problem still not solved.

And you're right, there's never a completion point on "better": because there's no such thing as perfect. Media is always evolving, and that's a good thing. Stagnation is death. Always criticize flaws

What you're saying is that art must tick a series of check boxes always.

- Is the main character an only slighty-decent look minority
-Are there enough LBGT characters sprinkled through out the story.
-Make sure nothing bad happens towards marginalized characters
-nothing resembling any sort of possible stereotype can exist (whether positive, negative, or neutral)

How can something be a creative piece of artwork if the creator must always make sure they are adhering to an imaginary social criteria that normal people don't think about on a day-to-day basis?

I disagree with things can always be better, because even if they managed to make the gender of characters so varied that it boarders on "perfect", there will always be another bug to pick. If it's not the sexualization of women, then any character in an action game will be called abuse-fantasy. Or some other such form of shit. The people who write articles like this are not doing so because they think there is a genuine problem, they are doing to generate clicks and inflate their socisl credit-score.

in 2019 59% of the games features women as the main characters (according to feminist frequency) And that wasn't enough because 41% of the featured games had males as the lead role. So even when the MAJORITY of game reveals where staring women, it wasn't good enough. So at what point will it be good enough? 75%? 99%? 100%? Should the games industry just not make male characters for a few years to balance out the discrepancy?

There is a reason why i always ask these questions, because nobody can ever give me an answer when I ask "at what point would you be satisfied?" Because the answer is never, like you said people in your camp will only ever admit to things being "better" but never good enough. So yeah, perfection doesn't exist because these people have no criteria for "good enough" let alone perfection. If you can't even get to an okay place, how can you ever hope to achieve perfection?

 

[BrawlMan]

There is a reason why i always ask these questions, because nobody can ever give me an answer when I ask "at what point would you be satisfied?"

We go give you answers; plenty of times. You ain't listening, only want to hear an "easy" answer, or just hear what you want to hear and nothing else just so you can sleep at night. There is no easy answer; deal with it.

There is no perfection, but those of us different races, genders, sexual preferences want is to be seen, treated, and respected as human beings. Not monsters, not Tom-foolery, not negative stereotypes, not sex objects, not constant victims needed to be save by a "white savior", and not constantly rely on racial cliches that are beyond not true. Nor another fucking slave or "white guilt" movie. Show those characters as fucking people!

Mistakes can happened, but they can be lessened or prevented by not doing the same fuck ups over and over again. Get wrtiers that actually know people of different backgrounds or of their own culture. And if you have a team writers that are all the same race, and the story is about people of different race or religion gets some fucking proffesional consultants or experts that can help with your writing and story. It's not fucking rocket science, but some people are just too lazy to go through the effort. Doing all that prevents enforcing old stereotypes and prevents so many unfortunate implications.

 

[Hawki]

Remember when all those people on social media got mad that Sucker Punch would dare to make a game that was Japanese centric and inspired, but everyone in Japan was like, "Yo this is cool as fuck! Good job America!"?

Yep.

WoW got used as an example, and okay even if you want to use the Vanilla WoW armor as a problem that's fine. But what is the problem with characters that have no male counter part in their games? Lara Croft is sexist how?

I'd argue Lara has a counterpart in Nathan Drake. Arguably even Indie himself, since he's appeared in quite a few games.

What's the excuse for Zero Suit Samus who's outfit is form fitting but makes sense within the art style and theme of her games.

I haven't seen many people complain about Zero suit Samus per se. However, the gripes remain as to how early on, Samus was strip-teased as a reward, and that phase of her having high heels with the suit. Thankfully, both have been toned down.

Also not sure what you mean by the themes. I can nominate a few themes the Metroid series has explored, but none of them would be related to the zero suit.

EDIT: I happened to be following some Korean Overwatch folks at the time, but this Kotaku article is basically accurate to what I remember

How An Overwatch Skin Left Some Of D.Va's Biggest Fans Feeling Betrayed

Overwatch hero D.va has been considered a symbol of empowerment by a lot of feminists in the Korean Overwatch community, representing how women could be lauded for their talent instead of their looks. Long before Mei graced protest memes for Hong Kong, a group called FAMERZ, then called National...

kotaku.com

Checks article...

Yep, it's Kotaku being Kotaku.

Also that Vice article...Jesus Christ...

And yes in a way if you wanted to criticize Ubisoft games for being culturally insensitive based off French culture...then you'd probaly not have much leg to stand on.

 

[Hawki]

I disagree, while Nintendo may not take much risk in it's game department. They are rather risky with their hardware. The Wii, Wii-U, and Switch were all very experimental systems that went for a niche market rather than trying to compete on a graphical power level with Microsoft and Sony. They take risks, it's just in different ways.

Um, how have those risks worked out? The Wii had its motion control nonsense, the WiiU was an abomination, and the Switch can't hold a charge.

Said it before and I'll say it again - Nintendo makes great software, but terrible hardware, and I'd love for them to quit the latter so they could focus on the former.

in 2019 59% of the games features women as the main characters (according to feminist frequency) And that wasn't enough because 41% of the featured games had males as the lead role.

Um, source? Because IIRC, that figure was achieved only by including games that allow you to choose your protagonist's gender. Focus on sole female or sole male outings, and the stats change.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

What you're saying is that art must tick a series of check boxes always.

- Is the main character an only slighty-decent look minority
-Are there enough LBGT characters sprinkled through out the story.
-Make sure nothing bad happens towards marginalized characters
-nothing resembling any sort of possible stereotype can exist (whether positive, negative, or neutral)

I've literally ever said that, but go off

How can something be a creative piece of artwork if the creator must always make sure they are adhering to an imaginary social criteria that normal people don't think about on a day-to-day basis?

Dunno, ask all the devs who couldn't make games with female leads because the producers said no

I disagree with things can always be better, because even if they managed to make the gender of characters so varied that it boarders on "perfect", there will always be another bug to pick. If it's not the sexualization of women, then any character in an action game will be called abuse-fantasy. Or some other such form of shit. The people who write articles like this are not doing so because they think there is a genuine problem, they are doing to generate clicks and inflate their socisl credit-score.

"Nobody can have genuine opinions if they're opinions I don't like"

in 2019 59% of the games features women as the main characters (according to feminist frequency) And that wasn't enough because 41% of the featured games had males as the lead role. So even when the MAJORITY of game reveals where staring women, it wasn't good enough. So at what point will it be good enough? 75%? 99%? 100%? Should the games industry just not make male characters for a few years to balance out the discrepancy?

1) lol, feminist frequency
2) Sure, why not? Gender doesn't actually matter, right? You can get as invested in a female character as a male character, yeah? Representation doesn't actually matter?

There is a reason why i always ask these questions, because nobody can ever give me an answer when I ask "at what point would you be satisfied?" Because the answer is never, like you said people in your camp will only ever admit to things being "better" but never good enough. So yeah, perfection doesn't exist because these people have no criteria for "good enough" let alone perfection. If you can't even get to an okay place, how can you ever hope to achieve perfection?

Perfection can't exist because it's a thing that can't exist in a subjective medium. Stagnation equals boredom and boredom is anathema to entertainment. I do not, in fact, hope to achieve perfection.

But, like: most things are broadly okay. Hell, I like most games in general. I'm just not gonna stop criticizing things out of some cosmic sense of "good enough". That includes things I like.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Yep.

Critical also argued that Korean people couldn't criticize Overwatch's Korean character because the game wasn't made by Korean's for Korea, so double standard there

 

[BrawlMan]

Critical also argued that Korean people couldn't criticize Overwatch's Korean character because the game wasn't made by Korean's for Korea, so double standard there

Hypocritical self-defeating arguments as usual. Nothing new to see here.

 

[Hawki]

Critical also argued that Korean people couldn't criticize Overwatch's Korean character because the game wasn't made by Korean's for Korea, so double standard there

Except I wasn't responding to that point, nor was Critical claiming that about Sekiro.

Sekiro had surreality to it I've come to expect in certain circles because it was the mere act of an American studio doing a game based on Japanese history that got people riled up. Not that it did it poorly or whatever, the MERE ACT.

That's not the same thing as criticizing D.Va as a character, because no-one has said (to my knowledge) that Blizzard should have never made characters from outside the US in its game.

 

[BrawlMan]

and I'd love for them to quit the latter so they could focus on the former.

No. Despite their hardware issues, I don't want Microsoft nor Sony to be the only console makers in the world. Fuck that shit. If that's the case, I might as well give up gaming altogether. I like having variety and a I want my Japanese games to stay.