Feminists next target; Battlefield 1.

[Darth Rosenberg]

Nah, from what I gathered, they actually went out of their way to include them before something (Most likely a EA Veto) caused the backpedal.
They even knew it kinda made little sense in the setting but they pushed for it anyway and that's why there were female soldiers in the trailers.

Were they clearly shown or talked about in MP or/and SP, though? The OP failed to outline any sources or anything productive, really, so it's hard to know how to 'react'. I've read the confirmation of having a female "protagonist" (will she be an actual PC? or just a rather pointless, fringe NPC?), and no females being included in MP, but there wasn't really any more context than that.

Apropos war and gender: given apparently any and all conflicts are up for exploitation, it'd be interesting to see a game from, say, the POV of a female unit of FARC (different setting, different 'bad' guys, different 'good' guys, etc), even delving into the reasons why people are prepared to leave their homes and families into order to fight for such a cause.

I mean, if war is to be exploited and presented as fun entertainment, you might as well comment about war/human nature at the same time now and then, and there are trends of leftist guerrilla movements which see an equality of gender on the battlefield - justified and united by cultural/dogmatic causes - thus making them interesting from a gender perception POV, too.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Can I customize my shoulder to carry a white feather in his front pocket?
I mean, if we're going for historical accuracy, why not throw in some male guilt?

 

[CritialGaming]

You can talk about your vision of feminism but I can promise you, other feminist groups would absolutely flip their shit if you could shank, and shot women in a game like Battlefield. Especially people on Sarkesian's side of the feminist wall, as they believe that video games promote violence and the victimization of women, and putting female characters in a Battlefield game it LITERALLY murdering women.

Out of curiosity, do you have any kind of source to back this up or are we supposed to take your word for it? You're speaking in very absolute terms. Because nearly all of the violence related things that I have come across regarding women in violent games regards their status as powerless victims (ie: the sex workers in Hitman or the "rape" scene in Tomb Raider). The main issue is that they are not treated the same as the male characters. Someone else brought up the example of Fallout 4. There are LOADS of female NPCs that it is possible to inflict violence upon, yet no one raised a single peep about it.

Note: Please don't link to some random nobody's single tweet. It's honestly not representative of anything, and we all know that one could find a single tweet or two that argues any position possible in the world.

It's been brought up in a few of Anita's FF video's. Typically when she refers to this kind of thing, it has to do with games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can just go and murder people on the street and what not. No I don't have a direct quote, but go watch those videos if you can stomach the nonsense. But keep in mind Anita's "feminist" views are not normal feminist views. She's what I've begun to call a Feminist "Extremist" where she takes offense to just about everything and anything. Her videos complain about costume design, perpetrating violence against women, treating women as objects and rewards, etc and so forth. And I'm just saying, that because she has a problem with violence against women, she (and people in her camp) will have a problem with women in a battlefield game getting slaughtered.

Look EA probably said some dumb shit about the whole issue and it is getting blown out of proportion. But I have said for quite sometime, that you cannot blindly stick women into a game without thinking about context. Concessions have to be made for how those women are portrayed, and treated, because if you do it wrong there will be backlash. It's just the way it is right now.

 

[Lightknight]

Just because there weren't formally any women who were combatants in the war, that sure doesn't mean the game can't showcase the roles women did have. And not just for the fuck of it but to add different, interesting chapters and gameplay to the game. Sequences dealing with nurses and spies or women who were part of the fire brigade.

Moved my post from the other thread.

Most people are more concerned with the multiplayer than the story. Sure, the story could do it. Even that Russian women's battalion that actually had a battle would work.

I'm not so much myself concerned with the multiplayer since there's basically no "realism" there anyway. I mean, there's every reason and plenty of ways to have women as combatants in the game, though I'd hope they'd do something more interesting than that. So if it's in the main game, why not in the multiplayer?

I'll admit that I haven't played their games since Battlefield 1942 but they used to make the maps exist in real battle sites with somewhat realistic choke points. Do they not do that anymore?

A real question is how real are they going to take it? Race is going to be a thing too in this case. I assume the idea would be that your black character over/undershot his drop and landed in this other battalion to fight or something.

Women in combat is far less realistic, still is to this day.

Not too realistic I imagine, since a "realistic" multiplayer match would have both sides sitting in a trench for six weeks before charging headlong into machine gun fire. Since that will be no fun whatsoever, I'm sure it'll probably play like most battlefield games, a giant mashup of vehicles slamming around a map populated by everyone running and gunning like chickens. If they are worried about realism, the combat's going to dash the crap out of that anyway unless they do something radically different.

I mean, of course the gameplay isn't realistic. But the weapons, the regions, the equipment and uniforms? Those were kept realistic in the games I used to play.

 

[CritialGaming]

...who cares? You shouldn't wait for people to be ready for equality. If we did that then women wouldn't be able to vote still, blacks would still be slaves, and gays would not be allowed to even be near eachother.

That said, sure, some people, even some who claim to fight for equality, would claim that such things is sexist, but...it isn't. "You don't hit girls" is sexist. By that logic, its more ok to hit a scrawny 18 year old male than say, Rhonda Rousey. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 had female soldiers as enemies. Plenty of fantasy games also don't bother with such sexism, as plenty of females have met their demise in Skyrim, or games like Fallout. Real equality among sexes (and any group) requires treating all sides equally. If someone is ok or not ok to be killed in a video game, its the same regardless of their un-rendered genitals. Same in real life too really.

Hey I'm with you. If I had my way, I'd have women all over every game I could stick them in, and I'd treat them exactly the same way I treat the male characters. Even if it meant they get the shit kicked out of them, or they win the fucking lottery.

But shit don't work that way.

Remember that football player that got in trouble for knocking his wife out in an elevator? There was video of it all over the place. People lost their minds that he hit her. But they ignore the fact that not only did he actively try to not fight or hit her, but after it was all said and done she took responsibility for her actions! Yet the media villianized him for what he did.

Because no matter what, you cannot get away with treating women the same way you treat men. A man hits a woman, and everyone feels sorry for her and wants the man crucified.

But if a 5'3" dude walks up to the Rock in the middle of a bar and slugs him in the face, nobody would say shit if the Rock knocked his fucking ass out. Why? Because it was a man, and men are treated and viewed differently.

Is it right? Maybe.

But do you really think these Feminist screaming for equality want to be treated equally. You think they would stand for a ruling if a man hit a women and was excused because it was self defense? What about Divorce? Alimony? Child support? These are things that men almost never get. But if you make things equal, it all goes away.

And I know Video Games are a different story. They are fiction, and equal treatment in a game definitely doesn't directly translate. But there are some rules that apply.

Let me ask you this. How many games can you think of where a man battles through hordes of women? Now how many games can you think of where a woman battles through hordes of men? Why do you think that is?

 

[Vigormortis]

Feminism means equality.

You do understand that there are different forms of feminism, right? That feminism has evolved a multitude of sub-ideologies over the decades, not all of which are that interested in true equality.

You can say your version of feminism is all about equality, but saying all forms of feminism are is just incorrect.

Equality means that women get to do the same things men do. INCLUDING GETTING SLAUGHTERED IN VIDEOGAMES.

Frankly I don't understand the logic of "gasp, you want to see women getting killed??". Women are adult human beings just like men.... they're not children.

Agreed. Everyone has the right to get 360-no-scoped.[footnote]Am I meme-ing this right? I'm terrible with internet vernacular.[/footnote]

 

[shrekfan246]

You can talk about your vision of feminism but I can promise you, other feminist groups would absolutely flip their shit if you could shank, and shot women in a game like Battlefield. Especially people on Sarkesian's side of the feminist wall, as they believe that video games promote violence and the victimization of women, and putting female characters in a Battlefield game it LITERALLY murdering women.

Out of curiosity, do you have any kind of source to back this up or are we supposed to take your word for it? You're speaking in very absolute terms. Because nearly all of the violence related things that I have come across regarding women in violent games regards their status as powerless victims (ie: the sex workers in Hitman or the "rape" scene in Tomb Raider). The main issue is that they are not treated the same as the male characters. Someone else brought up the example of Fallout 4. There are LOADS of female NPCs that it is possible to inflict violence upon, yet no one raised a single peep about it.

Note: Please don't link to some random nobody's single tweet. It's honestly not representative of anything, and we all know that one could find a single tweet or two that argues any position possible in the world.

It's been brought up in a few of Anita's FF video's. Typically when she refers to this kind of thing, it has to do with games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can just go and murder people on the street and what not. No I don't have a direct quote, but go watch those videos if you can stomach the nonsense. But keep in mind Anita's "feminist" views are not normal feminist views. She's what I've begun to call a Feminist "Extremist" where she takes offense to just about everything and anything. Her videos complain about costume design, perpetrating violence against women, treating women as objects and rewards, etc and so forth. And I'm just saying, that because she has a problem with violence against women, she (and people in her camp) will have a problem with women in a battlefield game getting slaughtered.

Look EA probably said some dumb shit about the whole issue and it is getting blown out of proportion. But I have said for quite sometime, that you cannot blindly stick women into a game without thinking about context. Concessions have to be made for how those women are portrayed, and treated, because if you do it wrong there will be backlash. It's just the way it is right now.

If Anita is an "extremist", then Donald Trump is a national terrorist.

She doesn't "take offense", she points out issues. You know, kinda like how the vast majority of this website does with every game that ever comes out. She complains about costume design because by and large most women's designs in video games are hilariously oversexualized. She complains about perpetuating violence against women because, again, very often that violence tends to be sexualized, especially disproportionately so in comparison to violence against men. She complains about women being treated as objects and rewards because... well, frankly, if I need to explain that one then this conversation isn't worth having in the first place.

See, the funny thing is that "violence against women" is such a nebulously vague statement that one can use it to describe practically anything, and it utterly removes the actual context of the argument in question. It's an easy scapegoat for someone to use when they broadly know what their ideological opponent is talking about, but haven't paid close enough attention to actually process the argument in full.

 

[Saelune]

...who cares? You shouldn't wait for people to be ready for equality. If we did that then women wouldn't be able to vote still, blacks would still be slaves, and gays would not be allowed to even be near eachother.

That said, sure, some people, even some who claim to fight for equality, would claim that such things is sexist, but...it isn't. "You don't hit girls" is sexist. By that logic, its more ok to hit a scrawny 18 year old male than say, Rhonda Rousey. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 had female soldiers as enemies. Plenty of fantasy games also don't bother with such sexism, as plenty of females have met their demise in Skyrim, or games like Fallout. Real equality among sexes (and any group) requires treating all sides equally. If someone is ok or not ok to be killed in a video game, its the same regardless of their un-rendered genitals. Same in real life too really.

Hey I'm with you. If I had my way, I'd have women all over every game I could stick them in, and I'd treat them exactly the same way I treat the male characters. Even if it meant they get the shit kicked out of them, or they win the fucking lottery.

But shit don't work that way.

Remember that football player that got in trouble for knocking his wife out in an elevator? There was video of it all over the place. People lost their minds that he hit her. But they ignore the fact that not only did he actively try to not fight or hit her, but after it was all said and done she took responsibility for her actions! Yet the media villianized him for what he did.

Because no matter what, you cannot get away with treating women the same way you treat men. A man hits a woman, and everyone feels sorry for her and wants the man crucified.

But if a 5'3" dude walks up to the Rock in the middle of a bar and slugs him in the face, nobody would say shit if the Rock knocked his fucking ass out. Why? Because it was a man, and men are treated and viewed differently.

Is it right? Maybe.

But do you really think these Feminist screaming for equality want to be treated equally. You think they would stand for a ruling if a man hit a women and was excused because it was self defense? What about Divorce? Alimony? Child support? These are things that men almost never get. But if you make things equal, it all goes away.

And I know Video Games are a different story. They are fiction, and equal treatment in a game definitely doesn't directly translate. But there are some rules that apply.

Let me ask you this. How many games can you think of where a man battles through hordes of women? Now how many games can you think of where a woman battles through hordes of men? Why do you think that is?

Again, you cant be a defeatist. Just because everyone else is unreasonable doesn't mean you have to give in to it. You just got to try to be that small voice of reason when everyone else isn't and hope that a few more people start seeing things through a less narrow lens.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh, so nobody's actually done anything. IO normally have to dial back the outrage, but I don't think I've ever had to dial it back this far.

Also, we're hiding behind realism now? Has anyone played a FPS before? Even Battlefield?

 

[Stewie Plisken]

Also, we're hiding behind realism now? Has anyone played a FPS before? Even Battlefield?

Context is king. When I play the historically-accurate campaigns in Age of Empires 2, I don't expect my Paladins to use battlefield tactics, but I do expect them to not whip out a M4 Carbine and clean up the map.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Wow, with the way you go off on them, people who read your post might actually forget they haven't actually said anything yet.

 

[Bombiz]

Oh, so nobody's actually done anything. IO normally have to dial back the outrage, but I don't think I've ever had to dial it back this far.

Also, we're hiding behind realism now? Has anyone played a FPS before? Even Battlefield?

@Something-Amyss
I feel like this all started because 'the know' reported that a UI programmer/dev for BF4 was ranting on twitter on how DICE/EA backpedaled on their decision to include female modules/PC in MP and how they came up with some excuse(Historical accuracy) that latter turned out to be false. Since the reporting of the story the programmer has made her twitter account private.
Also what do you mean by 'IO'?

 

[Erttheking]

Also, we're hiding behind realism now? Has anyone played a FPS before? Even Battlefield?

Context is king. When I play the historically-accurate campaigns in Age of Empires 2, I don't expect my Paladins to use battlefield tactics, but I do expect them to not whip out a M4 Carbine and clean up the map.

Yeah, except Battlefield isn't really shaping up to be realistic. Oh sure, they're using guns that existed, but they're using late war guns that barely saw any production and that everyone had. If you were a historically accurate soldier, you'd use a bolt-action rifle or a mounted machine-gun and relatively little else. You want a realistic WW I game? Verdun is how you do it. This is just the same old Battlefield game with a fresh coat of paint (I KNEW that they were going to go down this road)

And this is without getting into how the devs apparently didn't care about realism up until now.

And let's be frank, if we were to play a truly realistic WW I game, we'd play as someone who charged enemy lines and died halfway there.

Or a British soldier who was executed for moving across the No Man's Land too fast.

 

[Dizchu]

How the hell is feminism even relevant to this discussion?

I don't like feminism very much but all of this "damn feminists ruin mah vidya gaymz" bullshit is getting so tiring, especially when feminists weren't involved in the first place.

You're actually making me side with the feminists here. That's how ridiculous it's become.

 

[CritialGaming]

Snip

Not defeatist. Realist.

I sit back and hope. But I feel like this whole women in video games thing is being approached in the wrong way. From my side of the fence, I see one-side conceiting and one side being stubborn and harsh. What's left is a view of how this movie plays out, and sadly it's a sad movie.

snip

Anita is an extremist in the sense that she does not do any legit research into her views. Often she'll state a fact about a game, yet provide no context for where her fact came from. Her arguments may have a baseline of good value, but they are discolored by poor information and incorrect context. She manipulates her information to make sure it fits her point, and that's what makes her so fucking scary. She's the FOX News of video game feminism.

Anita's bullshit is beyond the point here, because she is hardly the only person bashing video games with ignorance.

The point is how women would be treated on the battlefield of a WWI game. And I'm saying EA made a smart move by just not including them, if they couldn't find a good scenario for them. However their PR reasoning, as usual, is shit. Kind of like Nintendo and Linkle, or lack thereof.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

Yeah, except Battlefield isn't really shaping up to be realistic. Oh sure, they're using guns that existed, but they're using late war guns that barely saw any production and that everyone had. If you were a historically accurate soldier, you'd use a bolt-action rifle or a mounted machine-gun and relatively little else. You want a realistic WW I game? Verdun is how you do it. This is just the same old Battlefield game with a fresh coat of paint (I KNEW that they were going to go down this road)

And this is without getting into how the devs apparently didn't care about realism up until now.

And let's be frank, if we were to play a truly realistic WW I game, we'd play as someone who charged enemy lines and died halfway there.

Or a British soldier who was executed for moving across the No Man's Land too fast.

My point was that there is a difference between realistic gameplay and a realistic framework for the story/setting. You can have one without the other and vice-versa. As I said, the inclusion of Americans instead of other nations in this particular installment disqualifies the game from both categories, but, generally, realism is a perfectly valid argument, even if the gameplay takes a few liberties to be more user-friendly.

I don't know much about GTA, but I would say it's probably sexist not because you can kill prostitutes, but because with all the episodes of the series they still refuse to put a female among the protagonists.
And, I may be wrong, but are GTA's main characters males, with females as secondary or prostitute/lover roles?
Keep in mind I don't play GTA so I am making blind assumptions here. I'm trying to guess.

Nope, they're not. GTA's protagonists are psychopaths who spend about 25 hours brutally murdering other men and... that's it. I don't see how not including a female protagonist makes the series instantly sexist, especially considering how fucked in the head the protagonists traditionally are and the can of worms a company would potentially open by depicting a female hero in such a light. Regardless, when women do show up in GTA, they're not squeeky-clean either.

This is just a FYI, you said you don't play GTA, so not knowing about it is fair enough. But Rockstar, as a company, is of the entirely equal-opportunity offender flavor, which is what makes the complaints about these games particularly annoying and off-base.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Fair enough, but, like you said, it doesn't really work in this context.

 

[someguy1231]

Also, we're hiding behind realism now? Has anyone played a FPS before? Even Battlefield?

It's not like game developers can only choose between "Absolutely 100% realistic in every way" and "Never tries to be historically accurate at all." There's a very large middle ground, and that's what BF1 is going for. DICE will be sticking to the historical record as much as possible, only taking artistic liberties when necessary in order to preserve fun and fairness. Female soldiers did not officially fight in WW1, except for a brief usage of "women's battalions" by Russia in 1917, and from everything I've read about them, they weren't that effective. You may not like that, but to point to the game making a certain type of weapon more common than it might have been and saying "See? They're taking artistic liberties here! So why not make women fighting everywhere then?" is just absurd.

 

[Something Amyss]

I feel like this all started because 'the know' reported that a UI programmer/dev for BF4 was ranting on twitter on how DICE/EA backpedaled on their decision to include female modules/PC in MP and how they came up with some excuse(Historical accuracy) that latter turned out to be false. Since the reporting of the story the programmer has made her twitter account private.

Okay, so if I'm reading this right, a crap news source offered up a bogus claim that cannot be verified, and that started this in your estimation?

Not exactly a sterling reason for this thread to exist.

I don't know much about GTA, but I would say it's probably sexist not because you can kill prostitutes, but because with all the episodes of the series they still refuse to put a female among the protagonists.

Allow me to clear this up:

Anita never calls GTA sexist to my knowledge. Just like the Hitman claims, this has little to do with reality. What she did was use GTA footage as part of her video talking about women as background characters (and possibly others) where she talks about the fungibility of women. Of course, in outrage culture, Anita even showing a game translates to "this game is sexist and should be banned." This is what I meant when I said I normally have to dial back responses.

Also, the killing a prostitute to get your cash back dates back at least to the PS2 games, well before Anita said anything, but it has become her fault because...well, she "triggers" people.

Oh yeah, and I do play the GTA series, and it's hella sexist, frequently racist, pretty homophobic, and routinely transphobic. It's probably worth noting that in V, prostitutes will never fight back if you attack them.

Yeah, except Battlefield isn't really shaping up to be realistic. Oh sure, they're using guns that existed, but they're using late war guns that barely saw any production and that everyone had. If you were a historically accurate soldier, you'd use a bolt-action rifle or a mounted machine-gun and relatively little else. You want a realistic WW I game? Verdun is how you do it. This is just the same old Battlefield game with a fresh coat of paint (I KNEW that they were going to go down this road)

And this is without getting into how the devs apparently didn't care about realism up until now.

And let's be frank, if we were to play a truly realistic WW I game, we'd play as someone who charged enemy lines and died halfway there.

Or a British soldier who was executed for moving across the No Man's Land too fast.

"Historical accuracy" always seems to boil down to an argument of convenience. The last time I saw it used on any scale was the Assassin's Creed series, which is historically accurate like Doctor Who is hard sci-fi.

 

[Frankster]

Clicked this thread cos was like "battlefield 1..ain't that the ww1 game? what the heck is gonna be the issue there?".

And..I am outraged, fuming with rage, LIVID even.
We are going to be free to choose as many smgs and machine guns as we want?
No french and the awesome "poilu"? Yet we are getting America as a side instead?

God damnit. Including women based on them female russian propaganda regiments (of which only 1 even fought if I remember that documentary I watched ages ago well, and they lost that battle and ended up being prisoners alongside the other russians) seems like the least of it if you wanna rail about historical accuracy.

Actually come to think of it, I truly don't care about the whole woman thing. One of my favorite games, Mount and blade: napeolonic wars, is a multi shooter where you can freely choose the gender of your soldier avatar, the only ahistorical element in the game.
And it's actually kinda cool to see some French chick in uniform pick up the Flag of a downed comrade and scream "Pour la France, chargez!!!!!!" (For France, Chaaaaarge! because one of the awesome things about this game is characters can spam appropriate phrases and orders in the native language of the side you belong to) as she leads the charge down the breach.
As long as we don't suddenly pretend women were the bulk of those dieing in the trenches irl, I'm cool with a bit of cosmetical historical revisionism so long as the basics of the war (trench warfare if in european theater, things like mass charges with bayonets and no ammo so troops wouldn't stop to fire) were there. Which unfortunately doesn't seem to be the case..

Anyways, guess can cross the game of list of things I was looking forward to. Was hoping for a ww1 game with scenes like this:
Not people bunny hopping and hip firing with smgs.