Critics Ruin Video Games? ?Good!

[JudgeGame]

Dude, that only makes it more disturbing. Executing a prostitute for her depraved ways is very touchy. It isn't cool. This isn't the kind of thing a normal person is supposed to be "hyped" over. It's a bunch of dudes killing a hooker because she's a slut. You seriously don't see why some people have a problem with that?

And yeah all the no soul and conformity. There's a thing called tone in fiction. The tone reflects the emotions and thoughts the creator wants the audience to experience. The tone is telling me "Look at how awesome this is!". Sorry. That isn't awesome. Some fascist cops killing a woman for her sins isn't awesome. It's sad and scary.

I'm not against the idea of a exploring that scenario, but telling me this is an awesome scenario is fucked up.

was she a hooker?

they were killing her because she OD'd on augmentations and went nutty.....thats it really

I refuse to waste my time with somebody who doesn't even read a post before responding to it. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume you intentionally deleted the post I was responding to confuse matters. You should pay attention to a conversation if you are going to participate. I'm sorry but this is just absurd and I won't go along with your charade.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

This is making me a bit ashamed to be honest.

Ashamed that I'm even participating in this discussion. Half the instances of sexism, racism or anti-LGBT content, excluding those that are part of the game's universe, are matters of poor taste on the part of producers (Dead Island torso) trying to cater to a demographic they don't understand (nobody defended the torso by saying 'but it's hot'), or practicality (gay planet). I really don't see much actual sexism in these insular incidents. There are more general things that can be easily fixed, like having more realistically distributed/shaped female characters (except in universes where this is explained), having SOME (not all, that's just stupid, unless again the game's setting explains) LGBT characters where any pathetic attempt at romance is implemented, and being sensible about who the bad guys are and what colour (again, if they're all black and it's set in the heart of Africa, nothing to see here). In fact, I'd go on to say a lot of what remains is poor/unimaginative writing/design as opposed to actual prejudice.

The fact that there even is this whole sexism thing that comes up every time something possibly sexist is in a game, and that people have to weigh in constantly, sort of disproves the point. The people who threatened Sarkeesian with rape and murder are not most of the demographic. And lastly, I sort of don't care what happens in other games unless if affects my game. If a series I'm playing changes tone for the worse or has something sexist in it (and I mean what I would consider sexist), then that matters to me because I expect and deserve better (I paid for it and have played the series before). But otherwise, I don't even play the game, so if it's sexist, it's not getting any support from me anyway and there is no reason I should have sway over it.

 

[Woiminkle]

Even if there was a case for the ad containing some "cheap male-centric pandering" what is so wrong with that? Is it really such a crime for a game to appeal largely or even only to a male audience? Not every game is for everybody and there are plenty of other games that you can play if you don't find this particular one appealing or even offensive. Why is it so acceptable to have female only events and spaces yet as soon as men have one there's uproar about it not being inclusive or female friendly.

 

[JudgeGame]

All the shit we complain about being sexist...really is sexist. It's made by sexist men who think men are animals who are hypnotized by T&A or RAEP or damsels-in-distress or sexy disembodied zombie torsos or are incapable of caring about women except when it's time to fuck them.

Okay guys, I figured it out, we can all go home. Sorry, Anita, we won't need your videos after all.

What you are describing has existed for tens of thousands of years and it is called misogyny. I'm particularly tired of gender roles that force men to look down on themselves and act like utter jerks with no personal dreams or passions. Men believing they are animals and that they must be hypnotized by T&A are ancient stereotypes. These stereotypes were perpetuated by a society dominated by a small group of powerful men who were very comfortable living within that set of arbitrary rules. One of my personal reasons for being into social activism is to tear down those stereotypes, so people stop judging me for what I'm not.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

It's pretty funny how goddamn often the whole criticism of Sarkeesian has just been put off as "misogyny" or "gamers feeling like their medium is being attacked."

I'm going to make this clear:

Some of us dislike Sarkeesian because she's a bad critic who can't form a good argument with proper research and won't bother seeing anything other than what she wants to see. You see, there's plenty of critics I disagree with, but can admit are good critics who know what they are talking about (most of the time at least) and it has nothing to do with their gender.


"Concern 1: Criticism is an attack on video games." <- No one believes this if they have half a brain at least.

Sarkeesian isn't a critic as much as she is a person who wants to point out what she dislikes without discussing the context behind it. What she's doing barely counts as an attack on videogames because it's so silly. It's not an attack, it's not criticism, it's just stupid.

 

[Vault101]

I refuse to waste my time with somebody who doesn't even read a post before responding to it. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume you intentionally deleted the post I was responding to confuse matters. You should pay attention to a conversation if you are going to participate. I'm sorry but this is just absurd and I won't go along with your charade.

*facepalm*

it was just somone elses interpretation (they were also mistaken in assuming the girl in question was a hooker) a symbolic interpretation is not fact in terms of what the trailer was about or what the creators intended, it has about as much validity as me saying the trailer is symbolic of my little pony,

second you jumped on that and went all "ERMAGERD! THIS BAD!!" on it. Congradulations you compeltly fucking missed the point of fiction

having a "theme/thing/idea" in a work does not automatically mean "I endorse this theme/thing/idea"

[quote/]Some fascist cops killing a woman for her sins isn't awesome. It's sad and scary.[/quote]
mabye thats how your suposed to feel? if it was the theme its called framing.....,.again just another interpretation [footnote/]I may have gone overboard there as you did say it was the Idea that the theme was "cool" that you oposaed..however you did kind of assume thats that they ment[/footnote]

this kind of overreaction crap is just as bad as sexism/whatever-ism in media, don't stop to consider context or the fact you may have read somthing wrong....OH NO just take somthing and beat it down

 

[Kroxile]

Long Wall of Text

I agree with every word in that wall. It seems the escapist in particular is a hive for liberal douchebags trying to find some ground with which to push their agendas... though I admit I don't really go to other videogame "news" sites so I have no idea if its as bad elsewhere.

 

[Woiminkle]

All the shit we complain about being sexist...really is sexist. It's made by sexist men who think men are animals who are hypnotized by T&A or RAEP or damsels-in-distress or sexy disembodied zombie torsos or are incapable of caring about women except when it's time to fuck them.

Okay guys, I figured it out, we can all go home. Sorry, Anita, we won't need your videos after all.

What you are describing has existed for tens of thousands of years and it is called misogyny. I'm particularly tired of gender roles that force men to look down on themselves and act like utter jerks with no personal dreams or passions. Men believing they are animals and that they must be hypnotized by T&A are ancient stereotypes. These stereotypes were perpetuated by a society dominated by a small group of powerful men who were very comfortable living within that set of arbitrary rules. One of my personal reasons for being into social activism is to tear down those stereotypes, so people stop judging me for what I'm not.

And yet you have always assumed, with your oh so generous benefit of the doubt that games are "made by and designed for aggressively immature idiots". So people shouldn't judge you for what you are not but it's okay for you to judge others based on your own prejudices.
Ever heard of cognitive dissonance?

 

[JudgeGame]

Even if there was a case for the ad containing some "cheap male-centric pandering" what is so wrong with that? Is it really such a crime for a game to appeal largely or even only to a male audience? Not every game is for everybody and there are plenty of other games that you can play if you don't find this particular one appealing or even offensive. Why is it so acceptable to have female only events and spaces yet as soon as men have one there's uproar about it not being inclusive or female friendly.

Because 95% of western culture is directly aimed towards middle-class, white men. You don't see booth boys at game conventions because game conventions are aimed towards men even when almost half of all gamers today are women. But we don't say game conventions are male exclusive. Game conventions are for everybody but if you aren't a white man you will be alienated. I mean, even the booth babes are 90% white and that's being generous. I think I've seen 3 black booth babes in my whole life, the rest are asian booth babes from Japanese companies. Of course you don't need exclusive events for you because anywhere you go you are already the centre of the event, you don't need people to make you feel you aren't a supporting character in your own life.

Videogames have very few diverse protagonists. Practically all protagonists in western videogames are white. You only get to be another race if there are several possible protagonists in a game. Do I even have to argue famale protagonists? I mean, there's already a pretty in-depth analysis concerning why female protagonists have a huge stigma from the whole industry's perspective.

[link]http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them[/link]


PS: Actually those black booth babes weren't even from a game convention but a car show, so officially I've never seen a black booth babe at a game convention.

 

[JudgeGame]

All the shit we complain about being sexist...really is sexist. It's made by sexist men who think men are animals who are hypnotized by T&A or RAEP or damsels-in-distress or sexy disembodied zombie torsos or are incapable of caring about women except when it's time to fuck them.

Okay guys, I figured it out, we can all go home. Sorry, Anita, we won't need your videos after all.

What you are describing has existed for tens of thousands of years and it is called misogyny. I'm particularly tired of gender roles that force men to look down on themselves and act like utter jerks with no personal dreams or passions. Men believing they are animals and that they must be hypnotized by T&A are ancient stereotypes. These stereotypes were perpetuated by a society dominated by a small group of powerful men who were very comfortable living within that set of arbitrary rules. One of my personal reasons for being into social activism is to tear down those stereotypes, so people stop judging me for what I'm not.

And yet you have always assumed, with your oh so generous benefit of the doubt that games are "made by and designed for aggressively immature idiots". So people shouldn't judge you for what you are not but it's okay for you to judge others based on your own prejudices.
Ever heard of cognitive dissonance?

I judge people on their own actions and merits. I didn't assume anything. Prejudice involves assuming stuff.

 

[JudgeGame]

I refuse to waste my time with somebody who doesn't even read a post before responding to it. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume you intentionally deleted the post I was responding to confuse matters. You should pay attention to a conversation if you are going to participate. I'm sorry but this is just absurd and I won't go along with your charade.

*facepalm*

it was just somone elses interpretation (they were also mistaken in assuming the girl in question was a hooker) a symbolic interpretation is not fact in terms of what the trailer was about or what the creators intended, it has about as much validity as me saying the trailer is symbolic of my little pony,

second you jumped on that and went all "ERMAGERD! THIS BAD!!" on it. Congradulations you compeltly fucking missed the point of fiction

having a "theme/thing/idea" in a work does not automatically mean "I endorse this theme/thing/idea"

[quote/]Some fascist cops killing a woman for her sins isn't awesome. It's sad and scary.

mabye thats how your suposed to feel? if it was the theme its called framing.....,.again just another interpretation [footnote/]I may have gone overboard there as you did say it was the Idea that the theme was "cool" that you oposaed..however you did kind of assume thats that they ment[/footnote]

this kind of overreaction crap is just as bad as sexism/whatever-ism in media, don't stop to consider context or the fact you may have read somthing wrong....OH NO just take somthing and beat it down[/quote]

That's why tone exists. The tone of the scene was very clear.

 

[Woiminkle]

All the shit we complain about being sexist...really is sexist. It's made by sexist men who think men are animals who are hypnotized by T&A or RAEP or damsels-in-distress or sexy disembodied zombie torsos or are incapable of caring about women except when it's time to fuck them.

Okay guys, I figured it out, we can all go home. Sorry, Anita, we won't need your videos after all.

What you are describing has existed for tens of thousands of years and it is called misogyny. I'm particularly tired of gender roles that force men to look down on themselves and act like utter jerks with no personal dreams or passions. Men believing they are animals and that they must be hypnotized by T&A are ancient stereotypes. These stereotypes were perpetuated by a society dominated by a small group of powerful men who were very comfortable living within that set of arbitrary rules. One of my personal reasons for being into social activism is to tear down those stereotypes, so people stop judging me for what I'm not.

And yet you have always assumed, with your oh so generous benefit of the doubt that games are "made by and designed for aggressively immature idiots". So people shouldn't judge you for what you are not but it's okay for you to judge others based on your own prejudices.
Ever heard of cognitive dissonance?

I judge people on their own actions and merits. I didn't assume anything. Prejudice involves assuming stuff.

Go back and read what you posted again. You did in fact say that you always ASSUMED that games are made by and for yada yada all the rest. Go and read your own post and then come back and tell me again how you are now not assuming anything.

EDIT - Just in case you forgot which side of the argument you're on again or what you posted it's on page 3 of this topic, post number 95. Go and read it again.

 

[Woiminkle]

Even if there was a case for the ad containing some "cheap male-centric pandering" what is so wrong with that? Is it really such a crime for a game to appeal largely or even only to a male audience? Not every game is for everybody and there are plenty of other games that you can play if you don't find this particular one appealing or even offensive. Why is it so acceptable to have female only events and spaces yet as soon as men have one there's uproar about it not being inclusive or female friendly.

Because 95% of western culture is directly aimed towards middle-class, white men. You don't see booth boys at game conventions because game conventions are aimed towards men even when almost half of all gamers today are women. But we don't say game conventions are male exclusive. Game conventions are for everybody but if you aren't a white man you will be alienated. I mean, even the booth babes are 90% white and that's being generous. I think I've seen 3 black booth babes in my whole life, the rest are asian booth babes from Japanese companies. Of course you don't need exclusive events for you because anywhere you go you are already the centre of the event, you don't need people to make you feel you aren't a supporting character in your own life.

Videogames have very few diverse protagonists. Practically all protagonists in western videogames are white. You only get to be another race if there are several possible protagonists in a game. Do I even have to argue famale protagonists? I mean, there's already a pretty in-depth analysis concerning why female protagonists have a huge stigma from the whole industry's perspective.

[link]http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them[/link]


PS: Actually those black booth babes weren't even from a game convention but a car show, so officially I've never seen a black booth babe at a game convention.

Wow 95% of western culture is aimed at middle class white men? Where did you pull that made up statistic fr..... oh yeah you made it up. I wasn't suggesting anything about conventions. I didn't even suggest that gaming should be exclusively male and I never brought race into it at all. I merely suggested that it might be okay for one game out of thousands to appeal exclusively to males (of any race, age, physical disability etc). Since it's perfectly okay for game companies to set themselves up to cater exclusively for females, (see the company that makes the nancy drew games) why is it such a problem if another wants to sell one single game exclusively to males?

EDIT I am pretty sure by now you are in fact just trolling, either that or you have some sort of learning disability and in either case now I just feel sorry for you.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Well, I'll agree that the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer is being misjudged (or misused), seeing as there's no indication in the trailer of the woman being a hooker, and to think that the imagery of execution is intended to look awesome is to completely misunderstand cyberpunk as a genre. Making her look like a model and dressing her in almost nothing was unnecessary though, even if they have "story reasons" to back it up.

While the tone of the article is pretty over-reactionary and emotional, I don't judge it too harshly. There are some really good points I think are too often ignored or unknown, particularly involving the industry's interactions with it's consumers. The line between a company simply trying to give it's customers what they want, and attempting to decide for them, is very blurry, especially if a devoted fanbase is involved. It's important to keep a critical mind, even when defending something you love. I'll leave a quote that I feel is somewhat relevant (and has always kinda creeped me out):

"Activists fall into four distinct categories: radicals, opportunists,
idealists, and realists. [The 3-step strategy is to] (1) isolate the radicals;
(2) cultivate the idealists and educate them into becoming realists;
then (3) coopt the realists into agreeing with industry. The realists
should always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a
public policy issue... If your industry can successfully bring about
these relationships, the credibility of the radicals will be lost
and opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy
solution."

...so that's public relations for ya.

 

[Vault101]

That's why tone exists. The tone of the scene was very clear.

what?.....no really what?

 

[Vault101]

Well, I'll agree that the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer is being misjudged (or misused), seeing as there's no indication in the trailer of the woman being a hooker

its funny the person doing accusations of sexism is the one who (mistakenly) automatically assumes "hooker"

 

[Vault101]

also: power armour is for pussies

ugghh I hate that picture....its the prefect example of stupid-level sexualisation

there is absolutly NO reason for her midriff/cleavage to be uncovered aside from titillating the audience, having it bare marks her not as a charachter (and by extension person) but as a thing to be looked at that exists only for guys veiwing pleasure

somone might say "yeah but we dont need realism" to which I would ask why doesn't master cheif go shirtless?

the only redeemable thing here is that its not a real game or charachter...just somones fantasy

 

[RyQ_TMC]

i wouldn't call this misguided whining

Holy crap, that was just... offensive. To me. As a male. It offended me by assuming this kind of crap will draw my attention.

However, wasn't that review taken down after an outrage? Wasn't the Dead Island torso cancelled after the audience expressed their disapproval? I'm not saying "-isms" don't exist within the gamer public - I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that - but citing that as proof of the violence inherent in the system... I mean, sexism inherent in the medium is like condemning all moviegoers as freaks based on the existence of Cannibal Holocaust.

EDIT: Thinking about it, the review might have been referencing Tera's "bodacious near-naked ladies" advertising, seeing how over the top her act is, but it really sends a creepy vibe down my spine and, regardless of intentions, is just bad.

 

[Woiminkle]

i wouldn't call this misguided whining

Holy crap, that was just... offensive. To me. As a male. It offended me by assuming this kind of crap will draw my attention.

However, wasn't that review taken down after an outrage? Wasn't the Dead Island torso cancelled after the audience expressed their disapproval? I'm not saying "-isms" don't exist within the gamer public - I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that - but citing that as proof of the violence inherent in the system... I mean, sexism inherent in the medium is like condemning all moviegoers as freaks based on the existence of Cannibal Holocaust.

Was that a cheeky holy grail reference? Help help I'm being repressed!

 

[JudgeGame]

All the shit we complain about being sexist...really is sexist. It's made by sexist men who think men are animals who are hypnotized by T&A or RAEP or damsels-in-distress or sexy disembodied zombie torsos or are incapable of caring about women except when it's time to fuck them.

Okay guys, I figured it out, we can all go home. Sorry, Anita, we won't need your videos after all.

What you are describing has existed for tens of thousands of years and it is called misogyny. I'm particularly tired of gender roles that force men to look down on themselves and act like utter jerks with no personal dreams or passions. Men believing they are animals and that they must be hypnotized by T&A are ancient stereotypes. These stereotypes were perpetuated by a society dominated by a small group of powerful men who were very comfortable living within that set of arbitrary rules. One of my personal reasons for being into social activism is to tear down those stereotypes, so people stop judging me for what I'm not.

And yet you have always assumed, with your oh so generous benefit of the doubt that games are "made by and designed for aggressively immature idiots". So people shouldn't judge you for what you are not but it's okay for you to judge others based on your own prejudices.
Ever heard of cognitive dissonance?

I judge people on their own actions and merits. I didn't assume anything. Prejudice involves assuming stuff.

Go back and read what you posted again. You did in fact say that you always ASSUMED that games are made by and for yada yada all the rest. Go and read your own post and then come back and tell me again how you are now not assuming anything.

EDIT - Just in case you forgot which side of the argument you're on again or what you posted it's on page 3 of this topic, post number 95. Go and read it again.

That's called giving the benefit of the doubt or more formally pressumption of innocence and it's one of the founding principles of modern society. In the absence of evidence, instead of attacking gamers I am laying my trust in them. And to be clear, the only assumptions being made here are that games are not designed for would-be murderers and rapists and that games are not made by evil companies who actively support their mindset. What problem do you have with that?