Am I A Terrible Person For Not Caring?

[Gankytim]

I take MAJOR issue there. I have a few controversial opinions and ideologies. Now if my opinions and ideologies were represented in video games "for the sake of it" rather than to actualy explore and dissect and weigh their percieved morals the good and the bad I'd be uncomfortable, maybe even offended depending on how bad the portrayal was.

Come to think of it this criticism doesn't just weigh up against video games but all media.

Yes, by all means explore these things, explore humanity but don't do it for the sake of it.

Yeah, but being a human other than male an white isn't a controversial opinion or an ideology. They don't need to be explored or dissected because these people exist and deserve to be represented just as much as white guys do.

I hate it when people say `Don't put a female (for example) in a game for no reason`.
Like, why do you need a reason to be female?

Well that couldn't be more cynical if it tried. Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

No it doesn't make you a terrible person. Lately with the amount of times diversity issues seem to come up, I can perfectly understand why someone would get fatigued with it all and just want to enjoy their hobby without the added social issues. I know I do from time to time.

 

[Phasmal]

1) The majority of game designers/coders are white males (at least in the US). Regardless of anyone's level of acceptance of other races, religions, etc. you typically have an inherent bias to what is familiar with you. Don't give me any "I don't see color" stuff - that is bullshit.

Okay, maybe your first point is connected to what I'm talking about, but the rest sort of go off to a weird place, so I'll just address the first one.

Yes, many people have a bias towards what is familiar to them. That doesn't mean we all go `Oh well` and go home. People want to see other things. Developers are aware. This is not an excuse. Tomb Raider existing does not invalidate that.

Yeah, but being a human other than male an white isn't a controversial opinion or an ideology. They don't need to be explored or dissected because these people exist and deserve to be represented just as much as white guys do.

I hate it when people say `Don't put a female (for example) in a game for no reason`.
Like, why do you need a reason to be female?

Well that couldn't be more cynical if it tried. Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

Spoiler: The bolded

Saying that people outside straight white males existing is reason enough to include them in games is cynical and just to garner sales?

Please do not put words in my mouth. I asked why you need to put people outside the `standard` protagonist in for a 'reason' when these people... you know... exist. In numbers. And like to play games.

 

[Traun]

ak93]It seems that everyday people make a big deal out of gender equality in games.

Is it bad that I don't really care?

Not really, especially considering that the gaming media has blown the issue out of proportion to the point where it's really hard to take any gender-related issues presented in the gaming community seriously.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

No it's adding females for the sake of garnering variety. What's happening now is simply adding 'regular dude man' for the sake of garnering sales, or should I say, for the sake of avoiding any controversy in order to garner sales.

 

[norashepard]

It doesn't make you a terrible person but it doesn't make you any kind of good person either. Neutrality is neutrality, and so long as you and anyone else sits on the sidelines, insisting that games/movies/whatever are just entertainment, you aren't doing anything praiseworthy. Don't be surprised if those who DO care call you a jackass either.

These problems keep resurfacing, and the only way to stop them is to consistently call them out. Staying on the sidelines doesn't help that cause, and in fact only serves to help keep the shitty game development industry shitty.

The fact that you are a man affords you the ability to not care, but for women/PoC/non-hetero/non-cis people, it's impossible NOT to notice that you aren't represented, or that games actually actively support your objectification. Even if we want to ignore it, we often can't do so without effectively ignoring who we are, suffocating our identities just so we can play that fun game about fast cars and explosions.

So yeah you can not "care" all you want, but that kind of just makes you an asshole. You're the kid in elementary who's mom packs him a super awesome lunch every day and just can't fathom why all those other kids are constantly complaining about the terrible cafeteria food, and wants them to shut up about it.

 

[BakedSardine]

It doesn't make you a terrible person but it doesn't make you any kind of good person either. Neutrality is neutrality, and so long as you and anyone else sits on the sidelines, insisting that games/movies/whatever are just entertainment, you aren't doing anything praiseworthy. Don't be surprised if those who DO care call you a jackass either.

These problems keep resurfacing, and the only way to stop them is to consistently call them out. Staying on the sidelines doesn't help that cause, and in fact only serves to help keep the shitty game development industry shitty.

The fact that you are a man affords you the ability to not care, but for women/PoC/non-hetero/non-cis people, it's impossible NOT to notice that you aren't represented, or that games actually actively support your objectification. Even if we want to ignore it, we often can't do so without effectively ignoring who we are, suffocating our identities just so we can play that fun game about fast cars and explosions.

So yeah you can not "care" all you want, but that kind of just makes you an asshole. You're the kid in elementary who's mom packs him a super awesome lunch every day and just can't fathom why all those other kids are constantly complaining about the terrible cafeteria food, and wants them to shut up about it.

You do realize we are talking about businesses here? Unless we are talking about just throwing in male/female character models, which is obviously not the case if you're looking to have everybody from the LGBTQQIAAP community represented (since we're talking more than outward appearance), you're talking about increasing game production budgets. Is budget ever a 100% legitimate excuse? Probably not. But if I'm making a game and need to worry about just getting my vision done and into stores, trying to add in things like making a story line both male/female compatible (let alone LGBTQQIAAP compatible), you're talking about significant cost increases.

Vote with your wallet - if you feel your sexuality/gender isn't represented enough, don't buy those games. If you're a game developer, make those games and include those orientations.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

No it's adding females for the sake of garnering variety. What's happening now is simply adding 'regular dude man' for the sake of garnering sales, or should I say, for the sake of avoiding any controversy in order to garner sales.

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

 

[william12123]

Welcome to humanity! Where nobody is good, and everybody is just a different flavour of terrible... From a less cynical perspective, I say there's nothing particularly negative about being apathetic. Especially when it concerns what is essentially a luxury product.

The world is constantly crying out "CARE ABOUT THIS" be it products, social issues, legal issues, and more. Humans do not have the energy (much less the emotional fortitude) to care about EVERY SINGLE THING, especially when issues dont have any foreseeable resolution. It is extremely easy to become jaded (which I became in adolescence as a psychological coping mechanism, trying to care about everything drives you insane), and considering how little a single person can actually do, the demands on us simply arent reasonable. The best is to choose something that is close to you, and work on that (Me it's science education). Expecting someone to care about something they have little to no emotional investment in is unreasonable. The problem being, people who have an emotional investment in something tend to forget others do not. Which leads to the WONDER that is internet arguments.

TDLR: You're only as bad as anyone else who isnt emotionally invested in someone else's cause. So pretty much every human living today.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I might sound bad for saying this but it's the honest truth:

If it's a story driven game, I find it harder to be immersed if I am playing as a women. I wish this wasn't the case but I can't really do anything to change it.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I don't particularly care either. It's a non-issue for me. I play plenty of games as either gender and am frankly tired of being accused of sexism by people for enjoying games. I also won't apologise for being a man who loves women. I wish the complainers would find something new to moan about already. If they really cared about "equality for women" why aren't they doing something actually worthwhile like campaigning for change in Africa or the middle east?

Further, if women want to see more women in the games industry then they should apply for jobs within it. Every single woman who studied literature, journalism, psychology, sociology, or another of the Humanities is the problem, not the men who did study science, engineering, maths and computer science. There's nothing to stop any woman achieving academic success in a computer science, game design, programming or 3D modelling subject.

 

[Phasmal]

The problem is as follows.

If you put a female character in and she's not the most ultra developed character ever these days you get accused of one of two things.

1) tokenism - you put a female character in simply to try and appease people and didn't seemingly put effort into it

2) window dressing - You put a female character in and she's nothing more than a prop / part of the scenery. Yes just like any other NPC but people consider having female character who are NPCs and aren't the most deep things since Shakespeare to be proof of sexism................

Lets assume for a second that this is the case. So what? Gamers are never happy. Devs get death threats for much less. People saying `we want more female characters` and then not being ecstatic about every female in games is not reason to go `Oh well lets just go back to our all-male utopia`.

Publishers and developers are big and ugly enough to realise that they aren't going to please everyone, but that doesn't mean they stop trying- because otherwise what is the point.

 

[Britpoint]

ak93]It seems that everyday people make a big deal out of gender equality in games.

Is it bad that I don't really care?

I didn't finish Mass Effect and think "Man, that game would have been better had there been more females".

I play a game for the game. The characters that come up in the game are part of that experience. Male and female. Do we really need a quota for either?

It's fine that you don't care, but if you don't care why are you getting involved in the discussion? Because on the one hand you say "I don't care," then on the other say "Do we really need a quota for either?" Well my response to the latter question is if you don't care, then why do you care?

Yes, I find playing as exactly the same kind of character time and time again, perhaps not off-putting, but certainly tiring. I imagine it would be a hell of a lot worse if I was a woman. Or black. Or gay, because I reckon it would be nice to play as someone a bit like yourself from time to time.

 

[Mau95]

Well I don't care either.

"Ice to meet You" u2, captcha.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

No it's adding females for the sake of garnering variety. What's happening now is simply adding 'regular dude man' for the sake of garnering sales, or should I say, for the sake of avoiding any controversy in order to garner sales.

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

I'm with you and I kind of prefer it done without any huge justification. Very rarely is a character's heterosexuality made a big deal of in games or very rarely will the white guy's gender be an issue, so why should it be for anyone else? It still makes it abnormal. Not in an overt way, sure, but still abnormal, still pointing out that such-and-such feature is so inherently different.

Hey, you're gay? That's cool. Now, let's shoot some guys. You're a lady? Awesome. We've got people to kill. You're black? Sweet. There's people that need saving.

If LGBT, other minorities, and women shouldn't have to justify their existence, there's no need for games to have to justify their existence. Just let them exist.

OT: You're not bad, but you're not good. Apathy is still death, though. "So you will do nothing? Apathy is death; worse than death because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects."

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

No it doesn't make you a terrible person. Lately with the amount of times diversity issues seem to come up, I can perfectly understand why someone would get fatigued with it all and just want to enjoy their hobby without the added social issues. I know I do from time to time.

I get what you mean, and something that irks me about the whole debate is that some of the people who argue for "equality", "more inclusive representations" or whatever term they're using this week can be very inconsistent in their views.

The best example I can think of is in regards to Escapist contributors Moviebob and Jim Sterling. They've both made more than one video decrying sexualized female character designs, yet they both enjoy games like Bayonetta and Lollipop Chainsaw, which have leads that are about as sexualized as it gets. That just puzzles me.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Furthermore, from a business point of view this article [http://www.themarysue.com/why-games-with-female-protagonists-dont-sell-and-what-it-says-about-the-industry/] details stats on the subject of female protagonists in games.

From the article, it says:
- "games with only a male hero sold around 25 percent better than games with an optional female hero."
- "Games with exclusively male heroes sold around 75 percent better than games with only female heroes."

So if any one of the people ranting on about this were the exec at the publisher in control of the purse strings, faced with the choice of funding a game led by a male or a female and statistics show the above, which would they sink money into?

 

[Savryc]

I wouldn't say you're a bad person. Hell the reasons I want more diverse characters is simply out of boredom. I'm sick to the back teeth of playing Mr. Short Haired Middle Aged W.A.S.P Guy.

It's entirely self serving and I don't care, I don't owe the code monkeys making games anything. Gimme some fresh, new character and perspective and I'll give them my money.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

I don't know, it might stem from when the debate was all about proper representation of character X. Where a female character seemingly had to be handled with kid gloves, and had to have some deeper meaning to her presence for fear of otherwise ending up as just eye candy.

Right now it's like women/gays/etc in games are "special", and so there needs to be a "special" purpose behind their presence. Apparently the only options for women characters are either 'deep and meaningful' or 'shallow sex appeal'. We can't get non-dudes that are just... there. That would be shoe-horning, right?

 

[norashepard]

Snip.

You do realize we are talking about businesses here? Unless we are talking about just throwing in male/female character models, which is obviously not the case if you're looking to have everybody from the LGBTQQIAAP community represented (since we're talking more than outward appearance), you're talking about increasing game production budgets. Is budget ever a 100% legitimate excuse? Probably not. But if I'm making a game and need to worry about just getting my vision done and into stores, trying to add in things like making a story line both male/female compatible (let alone LGBTQQIAAP compatible), you're talking about significant cost increases.

Vote with your wallet - if you feel your sexuality/gender isn't represented enough, don't buy those games. If you're a game developer, make those games and include those orientations.

First off, there ARE no games to buy that don't have those characters. I have never played a game with a character like me, ever. There are no options. I cannot vote with my wallet. Also telling people to make something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves is no solution at all.

Secondly, it wouldn't increase the production costs to replace the white male types with black women or Latinx Intersex people or whatever other combination you'd want. So there's the solution! Just don't have white dudes in every single freaking game. It would increase it, a bit, to include all of them at once, but as Jim said in his most recent video, these things CAN be done without huge hits to budget. Particularly race, which literally constitutes ONE texture change, and maybe ONE model reformation per addition. For storylines, most are already male/female compatible (see any game with a nameless voiceless protagonist), and those that aren't usually only aren't because of a few select lines and scenes which would not be anything near a huge financial burden.