Flash Game Makes Players Beat Up "Tropes vs. Women" Creator

[Nexxis]

Jooooooy. Oh yeah. Rape in a game is considered no big deal, but heaven forbid a woman speaks an opinion about video games and other media. Keep it classy.

 

[blalien]

I'm going to assume it is until I've seen evidence otherwise.

The smallest asteroid in the universe is made of mushed peas and speaks French.

Prove me wrong.

I'm going to make some assumptions about you as a person, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm guessing that you are academically successful, and you're especially good at math or physics or something along those lines. I'm also going to guess you're fairly young, either high school or college age. And I have a hunch that one day you're going to be very successful in your chosen field, because you have a strong analytical mind and there aren't enough of those. And I respect your way of thinking because I used to think the same way. So believe me when I say this is friendly advice, and I do not intend to insult or demean you.

Logic is a very powerful tool for deriving conclusions based on given premises. But like all tools, it is only useful in situations specifically designed for that tool. Life has too many variables, most of which you can never determine, to observe it using only strict deductive reasoning. Over time, you notice patterns in how the world works and assume these patterns are consistent unless you have reason to believe otherwise. For example, you can't prove with 100% certainty that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, but you live your life around that assumption, and you don't run tests every night to make sure the sun will rise, because this is a pattern you've observed your entire life and you have no reason to believe the pattern has broken. In situations where you don't have enough data to use pure logic, you need to decide what is the most likely explanation that fits what you know about the situation, at least until you're given reason to believe your explanation is wrong.

Let's look at the facts here. Anita Sarkeesian spoke out in criticism of the video games industry. In response, a large group of people sent her violent threats, vandalized her web-site, revealed her personal information online, created pornographic images of her, etc. This pattern has repeated itself many times, the most recent high-profile case being Jennifer Hepler. If you expand out from video games, this scene has occurred throughout most of human history. There are places in the world today where a woman can be publicly beaten for speaking out against her husband. Note that it does not work the other way.

The most likely scenario here is that the people attacking Sarkeesian are motivated by misogyny. They believe women are meant to be controlled, and they are frustrated that Sarkeesian refuses to be controlled by them. Since they cannot physically attack her, they take every effort to threaten and dehumanize her until she shuts up and stops saying what they don't want to hear. You are correct that I can't prove this with absolute certainty, and I'm sure some people are motivated more by general hatred than by pure misogyny. But this explanation fits the pattern, and it is the best way to describe what is going on, so it's the explanation we should assume until something contradicts it or a better explanation comes along.

 

[chadachada123]

This is the internet. The same internet that has equivalent games involving punching or killing the president (no matter which president), or punching and killing Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or any of a billion other famous or high-profile people.

This isn't newsworthy. It's equivalent to a Fox News piece detailing the 'horrors' of 4chan in order to cause as much controversy as possible.

Is the maker of the game a twat? Almost certainly. Giving him extra attention certainly won't help matters, though.

 

[Knight Templar]

OK, this is dumb.

But it still doesn't exclude the fact the woman is a hack. Coincidentally, I was just watching this:

I've said it before but I think it bears repeating.
If you feel a video is necessary to make your point you need to find a better one, because anything coming from somebody so attached to 4chan (/v/ to be more precise) and trolling will only undermine your point.
It's like a video on the downsides to affirmative action coming from stormfront. It may well have good points but it has no credibility.

 

[DingoDoom]

A poorly made flash game as well as in poor taste. If anyone is curious, just google the name to play the game or go to swf chan if you're curious

I have to say, as a "beat em up game" it is possibly the most poorly designed one I've seen. If you want to play a good one, an oldie from about punching K-fed was much much better. The game just adds poorly photo-shopped superficial damage to a stock image.

I also must disagree with the use of text on gradient background as well, especially since the accompanying ms paint designed next button obscures the already rather hard to read Times New Roman font.

I give this game a 2/10 for being functional at what it does but performs poorly for the genre it represents.

 

[electronicgoat]

Are you guys really mad at this? That's kind of sad. It's strange, and kind of bizarrely childish, but it's a publicity stunt either way that only further polarized the opinion on the whole fucking fake issue; she's either someone who's bullshitted her way into making everyone give her money for something that should be free and is basically useless for all humanity, much like the rest of her inane videos, or she's an innocent girl that only wanted to make a $15k video series about women in video games and was "attacked by the internet".

Yes, the game is weird, yes it's childish, but it's also nothing but a big attention grabber for the person's message that no one is quite reading into because the game itself kind of detracts from the message; "Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her."

Of course, if you wanted to read into this issue by someone who doesn't make retarded videogames that do nothing but to build up this fake controversy, you could watch Foreverpandering's video or Instig8tiveJournalism's video. I'm a little disappointed to see a large amount of the Escapist forums defending her so blatantly.

Oh, and did she deserve this stupid game thing? It's fucking insignificant, it's a meaningless insult to her that will end up being the representative for all criticisms or fake hate or hate levied against her. Would a rational person care if someone made a stupid game about beating them up? Maybe so, but if you're a celebrity like Ms. Sarkeesian is right now, it's beyond her fucking concerns. Placed above that in her concerns is how it's going to earn her more money on top of the $160k if she exploits it.

 

[electronicgoat]

Rape in a game is considered no big deal,

I sincerely apologize for double posting on top of my somewhat repetitive rant, but this is so utterly wrong.

 

[Danzavare]

He doesn't represent us.

Other than that, I really don't know what to say. I mean, like the article says, they're basically doing a big part of her job for her.

 

[electronicgoat]

Rape in a game is considered no big deal,

I sincerely apologize for double posting on top of my somewhat repetitive rant, but this is so utterly wrong.

Your sarcasm detector appears to be malfunctioning.

No, I think that was supposed to be the "straight" example and the "wacky double standards" one was "but heaven forbid a woman speaks an opinion about video games and other media." Unless I'm missing some kind of joke here.

 

[Eveonline100]

That's it, I am making it my personal mission to wipe out the entire fucking Hominid family.

Can i join at this rate i'm starting to wonder just how excatly anybody could do this in this day and age what the fuck is this the 50s?

 

[orangeban]

Game of the year.

And to everyone who is saying that he proved that idiot youtube bloggers point, Newgrounds proved OUR point by blamming the game. This whole thing is about censorship and silencing anyone who disagrees with your opinion. Free speech has become a great inconvenience to the left wing, and there is a massive global push to be done with it in the name of security and "just being nice", and its gotta stop.

Newsgrounds is not the United States. The internet is not the United States. You have no right to free speech on Newsgrounds, they have no responsibility to let you say whatever the fuck you want to say.

Also, free speech does not allow you to encourage violence.

 

[ms_sunlight]

The smallest asteroid in the universe is made of mushed peas and speaks French.

Prove me wrong.

Yay! You've discovered what is known as "the problem of induction". It's the first thing taught on the first day of every Introduction to Philosophy of Science in every college everywhere. What they ask on the second day is, "Given the problem of induction, how can we know anything?" There are a lot of answers to this, a lot of approaches, some of which we call "science".

Unfortunately, the very fact that you used this argument shows how ignorant you are (unless you actually are teaching an epistemology or philosophy of science course). Fortunately, ignorance is the starting point on the road to learning. I heartily recommend the classic What is this thing called science? by A F Chalmers. Have fun!

 

[itsthesheppy]

Those russians, germans and "A-rabs" weren't specific individuals with names, social security numbers, and home addresses.

Even worse. They are a group of people which can be found anywhere on the world and easily targeted.

Excuse me for my fucked up morals, but arbitrary killing of people of a certain group is worse than physical assault on a single one.

You do have some fucked up morals. At least you're right there.

You see the thing is, killing Russians in Call of Duty is a little bit different than beating up Sarkeesian because:

1) It's very unlikely that playing call of duty will motivate someone to go wage a personal murder-war on all Russians, because that's highly impractical. Sarkeesian is one woman; an easier target for an enterprising douchebag.

2) This is a fairly progressive community, compared to most, and there's been something like 40 pages of raging debate over her. Some of it somewhat nasty. We don't see the same targeted towards "Russians".

3) In Call of Duty, the Russians are aggressors. They're combatants and you are defending yourself; you're not just shooting civilians in the streets, as the focus of the gameplay. Sarkeesian is not an aggressor; she's a singled-out target.

There's a reason that Stalin was (allegedly) right when he said that the death of one is a tragedy, but of a million is a statistic. We find it much easier to focus our emotions around an individual than a group; it's easier for us to contextualize. It's easier to get angry at an individual, or to focus our ire on one. In your example, it;s the choice between "russian soldiers" or "Anita Sarkeesian"... I think it's plain which of those two groups would find itself at greater threat, having a game made painting them as a target of aggressive violence.

 

[Eveonline100]

I'm going to assume it is until I've seen evidence otherwise.

The smallest asteroid in the universe is made of mushed peas and speaks French.

Prove me wrong.

I'm going to make some assumptions about you as a person, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm guessing that you are academically successful, and you're especially good at math or physics or something along those lines. I'm also going to guess you're fairly young, either high school or college age. And I have a hunch that one day you're going to be very successful in your chosen field, because you have a strong analytical mind and there aren't enough of those. And I respect your way of thinking because I used to think the same way. So believe me when I say this is friendly advice, and I do not intend to insult or demean you.

Logic is a very powerful tool for deriving conclusions based on given premises. But like all tools, it is only useful in situations specifically designed for that tool. Life has too many variables, most of which you can never determine, to observe it using only strict deductive reasoning. Over time, you notice patterns in how the world works and assume these patterns are consistent unless you have reason to believe otherwise. For example, you can't prove with 100% certainty that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, but you live your life around that assumption, and you don't run tests every night to make sure the sun will rise, because this is a pattern you've observed your entire life and you have no reason to believe the pattern has broken. In situations where you don't have enough data to use pure logic, you need to decide what is the most likely explanation that fits what you know about the situation, at least until you're given reason to believe your explanation is wrong.

Let's look at the facts here. Anita Sarkeesian spoke out in criticism of the video games industry. In response, a large group of people sent her violent threats, vandalized her web-site, revealed her personal information online, created pornographic images of her, etc. This pattern has repeated itself many times, the most recent high-profile case being Jennifer Hepler. If you expand out from video games, this scene has occurred throughout most of human history. There are places in the world today where a woman can be publicly beaten for speaking out against her husband. Note that it does not work the other way.

The most likely scenario here is that the people attacking Sarkeesian are motivated by misogyny. They believe women are meant to be controlled, and they are frustrated that Sarkeesian refuses to be controlled by them. Since they cannot physically attack her, they take every effort to threaten and dehumanize her until she shuts up and stops saying what they don't want to hear. You are correct that I can't prove this with absolute certainty, and I'm sure some people are motivated more by general hatred than by pure misogyny. But this explanation fits the pattern, and it is the best way to describe what is going on, so it's the explanation we should assume until something contradicts it or a better explanation comes along.

good post you know I still remember reading in english class how Anne Bradstreet's friend was exiled from her community for daring to publish written poems(which in turn was used to voice her opinions which was VERY common amongst writers for that period of time). What bugs me the most is that happened in the fucking 1700s how(why) is that 300 years later we are basically doing the same thing(sort of Anne's friend was actually sent away from home while what going on here is basically publicly harassing her but both are trying to do the same thing which is to keep her quite). I really do wonder if we will ever be able to eliminate prejudice in our society truthfully at this rate i really do wonder if we as a society ever really improved in terms of gender(and for that matter racial equality). To be fair we(The USA) at least doesn't passing openly racist and sexist laws but still though i wonder if as a culture we have improved though?

 

[Ramzal]

If people are dumb enough to give her 150,000 dollars when there are -way- more causes than video games that actually need that money, they by all means, lets let kids in Africa starve so we can have more women with long sleeved shirts in a false reality.

 

[Frission]

Game of the year.

And to everyone who is saying that he proved that idiot youtube bloggers point, Newgrounds proved OUR point by blamming the game. This whole thing is about censorship and silencing anyone who disagrees with your opinion. Free speech has become a great inconvenience to the left wing, and there is a massive global push to be done with it in the name of security and "just being nice", and its gotta stop.

Shut up with the argument of "but free speech !". Very rarely do people defend a right or cause that doesn't benefit them. You are probably not someone who altruistically wants to defend the rights of "free speech" for these sort of people. This is harassment and the equivalent of sending a death threat. This does not count as a free speech issue.

You just use free speech to defend the fact that whoever made this is trash and I guess, that you also secretly or not so secretly agree with them.

Also read some goddamn newspapers, because you're an idiot for believing in a conspiracy theory.

Captcha: magic decoder ring

 

[Eveonline100]

That's it, I am making it my personal mission to wipe out the entire fucking Hominid family.

Can i join at this rate i'm starting to wonder just how excatly anybody could do this in this day and age what the fuck is this the 50s?

I have to ask, why is this such a shock to you? I want a detailed answer.

Truthfully i expected this to have die down(think about this kick starter incident start what 2 weeks to month ago i actually forgot about it till now). WHat does surprise is the level of effort that went into this. Again think about it writing a angry post can be done in under minute designing, programing, have to render the art work and to post a game online that takes a lot of time so have this level of hate/harassment means that well this is something where i expected sexism was openly practiced, and enforced otherwise known as the 1950s (Even though women being treated and expected to act subservient to men has being going on for centuries). Come to think about, i guess that does neatly sum up the vast majority of the internet in a nutshell. I really do wonder when exactly move to a point in time where the races/sexes are truly equal. To sum up in a nutshell initial shock caused me to write a post in haste which now thanks to the benefit of me thinking logically about the whole situation i now realizes that the internet seems to be stuck 1950s era in terms of treatment towards minority,women, and homosexuals. Out of curiosity when/what do think will cause society to be gender/racial equally.

 

[blalien]

Or, maybe they think that asking for $6000 to make more of the same videos she already makes was bad enough, but that because she made a big deal about a bunch of idiots making sexist comments, she got over $150,000 to buy herself a few new cars and still have the $6,000 for whatever the heck she needed it for in regards to the actual videos. Frankly, if she doesn't do something actually worthwhile with all the money people threw at her, then she deserves a significant portion of all the hate she's been receiving.

$6,000 is a perfectly reasonable amount of money to request for doing research, purchasing AV equipment, and making quality videos. The $144,000 she made on top of that was completely out of her hands, and I don't know why people keep blaming her personally for the money she received. I completely agree with your other point. I hope she donates the majority of that money to charity, but we should withhold judgment until we find out what she does with it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Game of the year.

And to everyone who is saying that he proved that idiot youtube bloggers point, Newgrounds proved OUR point by blamming the game. This whole thing is about censorship and silencing anyone who disagrees with your opinion. Free speech has become a great inconvenience to the left wing, and there is a massive global push to be done with it in the name of security and "just being nice", and its gotta stop.

And here I was, thinking it was the INTERNET who was trying to censor the blogger.

Actually, no it wasn't. It was never "about" censorship. You're just on a censorship crusade (the last time I saw you, you were furious about your lack of free speech, which is an utter joke) and are grasping at anything you can tangentially connect to your point of view.

Think I'm projecting? Then try posting something on censorship that's A. relevant, and B. level-headed.

 

[II2]

I think this video actually acts as an apt visual metaphor for this whole ongoing saga:
NSFW, btw...

A Wil Wheaton dickastrophy of viral scope. Even if you run from the dickery, you end up interpolated into the mess... Even if you keep clear, inevitably all the cacaophony echoing all around you is only going to feed the monster, which at this point is at once all of it and encompasses Anita, the trolls, the abuse, the support, the dissent, the skeptics, the people who post on internet forums and... me, I guess.

I didn't even have a horse in this race.

While opposition and support typically come to anyone who treads on divisive issues, Anita is a rare person in the volume of both. The interwebz have shown her both the fist and the palm, as few get to experience firsthand.

This last incident might not be the worst, in a list of bad things, but her busted pus does make a good front page thumbnail for keeping people's attention. See what I mean? Can't even run an 'is-what-it-is' news story without feeding back into the monster in the video.

---

But for all that jawing, what DO I THINK? What OPINIONS do I hold?

I think the topic is a worthy one for discussing, but I don't think Anita is worthy of discussing it, because she isn't likely to actually explore the issue. She has a very focused, narrowly attuned view of things that will (likely) produce a series of videos adequately addressing social-feminist issues that arise when enjoying 'problematic' entertainment, as she has been doing, but now in - what most would consider - an unenviable position of having detractors and supporters both scrutinizing you and your output. The mad bank an vague accountability probably make it a bit easier to soldier on, though.

The things she finds 'problematic' I don't, typically. Though individual mileage may very, that's among the biggest problems with her work - that she has not adequately communicated what her core beliefs are and why she feels that way. It's like pointing out structural flaws on the building of society, without establishing what foundation it should have. She's a feminist, ok - that can mean a thousand things at once, or not. That kinda ambiguity creates misconceptions and lets people get away with straw accusations on the possibility that they could be valid as left undefined. Is she a Simone de Beauvoir kinda lady? Carole Pateman? or perhaps more of a Camille Paglia fan (I doubt it, but what do I know, she hasn't said). What are her foremost, central tenets and concerns and what would she have done about them? It would be useful information...

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This post has been brought to you by sleep deprivation and temazepam withdrawl.