Feminists next target; Battlefield 1.

[nomotog_v1legacy]

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.

Is is more important for the weapons to be realistic or the scenarios? I mean if you have all proper guns and uniforms, dose that actually tell you anything about WW1? Is that form of realism superficial?

 

[Bombiz]

Also good to see a continuation of the proud internet strategy of getting outraged at outrage that hasn't even fucking happened yet. It serves as a strong reminder that there is literally nothing these people whose mere existence offends you can actually do to avoid getting whined at for this or that nonsense, because you've already made it clear that you'll just make up something and ascribe it to them.

I mean these things did happen. their was a person who was working for DICE who ranted on her twitter about how DICE wanted to make female PCs at first but then backpedaled giving a poor excuse and how she got them to admit that they didn't think boys would find it believable. these are things that happened.

 

[Something Amyss]

There's a very large middle ground, and that's what BF1 is going for.

Far as I can tell, "no women" is one of the few things that actually hit that mark. And even then, not so much, as you make the provisional claim of "official" yourself.

Excuse me, but how much "research" does one need to do in order to criticize a video game? I think you'll find that a great many criticisms offered by the gaming community have no "legit research" behind them.

What gets me is that lack of research now equals extremism. That makes a good chunk of the people criticising her extremists by default.

WW1 didn't even have women fighting, why in the world would they now? Why do we have to shoehorn everything in?

Well lets see how it turns out. Will the player character or any protagonist rush an enemy trench in a cinematic sequence to bayonet a woman soldier? And have her screaming in pain and begging for mercy in the mud, the same as would be done to the man. Let's see how well that goes over with feminists. Or will there only be women in the multiplayer to appeal to the popularity and simultaneously avoid any controversy?

"Equality" isn't even equal.

As has been said previously, this isn't about story mode, so any woman on woman action would be in PVP. Probably no trench charging, either.

Has there ever actually been a complaint about female characters getting attacked in multiplayer games like this? I mean, I've never seen anyone complain that you could shoot a female PC in GTA Online, despite the game eing a strong magnet for criticism. Hell, I'm not even aware of people complaining that you could shoot female criminals. Was there any significant outrage? Howabout for Cod BOIII? I can't find anything.

For some reason, the idea that this won't go over well with "feminists" doesn't really hold up well given the lack of reaction thus far.

Equality, it seems, is equal. Women fighting and killing just like the guys is almost unilaterally treated as such. Well, by "feminists," at least. Can't speak for the camp that complains every time a woman might be included.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

'Pffttt. That's nothing new. We've been pretending that for decades.

My history classes even weighted our involvement in both WWs to the point you'd think the other forces were the ones who joined at the end. Well, until college.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

You do know that DICE is a subsidiary of an American company right?

 

[Erttheking]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

You do know that DICE is a subsidiary of an American company right?

Yes. So EA made this decision? They went public with it? I'm honestly curious, did they make an announcement for that somewhere?

I wouldn't know because my care meter hit near rock bottom. second I saw a snippet of gameplay and realized it was just more of the same run and gun that Battlefield always has.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

You do know that DICE is a subsidiary of an American company right?

Yes. So EA made this decision? They went public with it? I'm honestly curious, did they make an announcement for that somewhere?

A subsidiary is a company that is owned or controlled by another company. EA owns and controls DICE.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

You do know that DICE is a subsidiary of an American company right?

Yes. So EA made this decision? They went public with it? I'm honestly curious, did they make an announcement for that somewhere?

A subsidiary is a company that is owned or controlled by another company. EA owns and controls DICE.

In other words no, they did not announce if this was their decision. Well, that's all I had to hear, thank you for your time.

 

[RaikuFA]

Geez, one day up and already at four pages.

And all for jumping at ghosts.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

You do know that DICE is a Swedish company right?

You do know that DICE is a subsidiary of an American company right?

Yes. So EA made this decision? They went public with it? I'm honestly curious, did they make an announcement for that somewhere?

A subsidiary is a company that is owned or controlled by another company. EA owns and controls DICE.

In other words no, they did not announce if this was their decision. Well, that's all I had to hear, thank you for your time.

Sure. In other news from Amazing Stories, employees don't have to answer to their bosses now.

 

[Oroboros]

They promised playable female soldiers, and even advertised one in the first trailer,before going back on what they'd said. I'd say there's plenty there to criticize.

Lots of folks bringing up that female soldiers were rather rare in WWI, and that's true. However, the Harlem Hellfighters, which we can play as, were a tiny fraction of the total troops that served in WWI. DICE obviously felt there was a story well worth telling there, despite their relatively minor role. I think this is rather cool. Now it looks like DICE (at some point) thought that exploring female soldiers in WWI would also be something worth exploring-hence the female soldier in the trailer. And I think that would be something cool to explore as well. The diversity of the forces involved in WWI has been something that they have been emphasizing so far, and I think that's commendable.

They have reneged on at least part of that now though, and I think that's really unfortunate.

EDIT: Is the Bedouin warrior still playable in single player? Or is she being removed as part of this backpedaling?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'll admit I rolled my eyes when I saw the OP mention he was waiting Sarkeesian's cohorts to pop up. I mean, God forbid someone express a contrarian opinion, am I right?

We'll have to reach a point where putting female soldiers under the stress of warfare for the purposes of our precious shooty bang-bangs isn't perceived as sexism or a breach in chivalry. We'll also have to eventually reach a point where a statistical minority doesn't warrant its being ignored for sheer convenience.

I'll take our wins where we can take them, though. A Black lead in the single-player campaign would already be a lot.

 

[Avnger]

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.

I'm really not trying to be an ass here, but telling someone to go watch a bunch of videos isn't exactly proof; it's the equivalent of just telling someone to "go google it." If you can't show specific examples, you essentially have nothing proof-wise. And specifically regarding any of Anita's videos, I'm not going to just take your word on what she said; it's honestly not personal. I've just seen way too many complete misinterpretations (both deliberate and accidental) of what she says when people paraphrase her.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

How did you clear this up? We know that there was a petition that managed to get GTAV banned from a couple of stores in Australia on the grounds of "depicting violence against women", which is true enough, if you completely ignore the fact that it also depicts (a lot more) violence against men.

As for Anita, she has become the be-all end-all of feminist critique in gaming. It was gaming sites that put her there and she gladly accepted the role. You really think that this promotion has absolutely nothing to do with the outcry over certain games? GTA has indeed been doing this since the PS2 games and at the time the only people to complain so vocally about it were Jack Thompson and his ilk.

I haven't played GTAV yet, but I'm pretty sure you could kill the hot-dog vendors in GTAIV and they practically provided the same form of service, in terms of gameplay and mechanics.

...You know, for someone who is the 'be-all end-all of feminist critique in gaming', I only seem to ever hear about her from people who don't like her. S'weird, you know? It's almost as if she's... not as big a deal as people keep hyping her up for. As if she's not this weird Super-Feminist Overlord and instead just some internet shmuck who churns out Feminist 101 critiques of various forms of media. Shit, she's even moving away from gaming to focus on history now! Truly, the be-all end-all.

I'm more amazed at USA for pretending it won WWI single-handed. They were barely in it! They only fought the last few months.

'Pffttt. That's nothing new. We've been pretending that for decades.

My history classes even weighted our involvement in both WWs to the point you'd think the other forces were the ones who joined at the end. Well, until college.

It was honestly the weirdest thing coming at American war games from an Australian background - all our history classes talked about shit we did, then all these American games are like 'Australians? In our War? No thank you!' and turned all the Rats of Tobruk into Bostonites or something.

...Hell, I recall one of the various Gamecube Medal of Honor games that resulted in the player character participating in the fucking Siege of Stalingrad, so... yeah. Historical Accuracy? Not what these games had in mind.

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

I don't blame you. I don't wanna dig through her Youtube tripe again, and I don't expect you to either. So believer whatever you want, and take what people say on an internet forum with a grain of salt. Considering the subject matter is completely non-important, i.e. video games.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

...You know, for someone who is the 'be-all end-all of feminist critique in gaming', I only seem to ever hear about her from people who don't like her. S'weird, you know? It's almost as if she's... not as big a deal as people keep hyping her up for. As if she's not this weird Super-Feminist Overlord and instead just some internet shmuck who churns out Feminist 101 critiques of various forms of media. Shit, she's even moving away from gaming to focus on history now! Truly, the be-all end-all.

Hey, I wasn't the first to bring her up in this topic, I was responding to someone. I also wasn't the one to parade her face all over the place, send her on Colbert, give her two cops for protection while interviewing her on ABC or give her an "Ambassador's Award" on GDC, simply because she (presumably) has a vagina.

It's true her exposure died down recently in comparison, but let's not pretend she was just some random critic buried somewhere in Youtube that only them evil trolls and misogynists bring up. She was legitimately high-profile within this industry for a good while.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

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.

There are text transcripts of her videos. They are quite searchable.

But keep in mind Anita's "feminist" views are not normal feminist views.

According to who, exactly?

She's what I've begun to call a Feminist "Extremist" where she takes offense to just about everything and anything.

I'd argue you are not exactly in a great position to be lecturing about people taking extreme offense to everything when you're taking offense to arguments and actions that people, including Sarkeesian, HAVEN'T EVEN MADE.

Her videos complain about costume design, perpetrating violence against women, treating women as objects and rewards, etc and so forth.

Criticizing the culture of violence against women/sexual objectification of women are pretty common feminist views, despite your argument to the contrary.

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.

Again, you're doing the same thing the OP is -- blaming people for something they haven't even done yet and may never do, and taking offense to fictional arguments made by strawman (woman?) versions of your perceived adversaries. And it's beyond ridiculous.

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.

And you're backlashing against an anticipated backlash that -- again, for the third or fourth time -- DOESN'T. EVEN. EXIST.