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

[MrBrightside919]

*walks into thread*

*walks right back out of the thread*

 

[DAAANtheMAAAN]

Yeesh... I figured our species would be above this sort of thing. Shows what I know.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Have you looked into the legitimate complaints about here at all? Have you assessed her stance, what she says or what she is implying? Nope, sounds like you gave a knee-jerk reaction. Congratulations, you are sheep.

Yes, and I agree with her points of view, mostly if not completely. So I gave her $25. And then I gave her another $10 to spite misogynist douchebags.

There is a proverb about certain types of people and their money. Go look it up. I've already said my part about this debate and it was ignored because it poked holes through the arguements of people like you.

Live in your bubble world, fake feminists.

Well that's a nice "no true scotsman" fallacy right there. I suppose you're the authority on who is and who is not a "real" feminist.

And what were those arguments again? Though I'm familiar with your posts, I saw no real arguments made.

In general a real feminist is someone that is in the game for equal rights, not to complain about how various things are sexist because they feature sex. Most of what are called fake-feminists are those that fall into anti-sex feminists & those that think women are superior. Both of whom give actual feminism(that equality business) a bad name. Its not really a Scotsman's fallacy if the definition requires that the person be in for equal rights, not oppression of women or the oppression of men at the hand of women. Its equality of the sexes, nothing more nothing less.

I agree that what you say wouldn't be real feminism. Unfortunately for you, it has nothing to do with Anita Sarkeesian, her Kickstarter, or the pervasive misogyny in gamer culture

There is no anti-sex message in anything AS has ever done that I've seen. There's anti-EXPLOITATION of sex/female sexuality. And I can easily see how someone who doesn't understand things could confuse the two.

And there's certainly no call for oppression of men at the hands of women. Unless you're the sort of person who thinks that Christians in the USA are being "oppressed" when they aren't given preferential treatment anymore to, say, have public school employees lead classes in prayer.

Edit: That is to say, *I* wouldn't consider it feminism because that's not like the feminists I know, but feminism is not a monolith. I'm not the arbiter on what isn't feminism and am not going to be drawn into No True Scotsman fallacies.

Have you looked into the legitimate complaints about here at all? Have you assessed her stance, what she says or what she is implying? Nope, sounds like you gave a knee-jerk reaction. Congratulations, you are sheep.

Yes, and I agree with her points of view, mostly if not completely. So I gave her $25. And then I gave her another $10 to spite misogynist douchebags.

There is a proverb about certain types of people and their money. Go look it up. I've already said my part about this debate and it was ignored because it poked holes through the arguements of people like you.

Live in your bubble world, fake feminists.

That's what you think you've done, yes. I just went back and read your posts and you really, really haven't. At all. Lol.

Here's the thing, the crucial logical problem you're making. Yes, there have been horrible flashes on NG that all sparked their own controversies in the day. But the entire backlash towards Anita Sarkeesian has one goal: To silence her. To stop her from making her videos, etc, whether through shaming, threats, trying to get kickstarter to cut her funding, etc. Whether or not you agree with the content of her videos, surely you can agree that she has the right to express herself and say whatever she wants, and people who agree with her have the right to support those things financially, yes?

So, we can (hopefully) both agree that she has the right to make videos expressing herself. The coordinated backlash against her is stopping her from doing just that. And I'm sorry, but this does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot take it free from the context of our society and Western history - in which women who dared speak up, whether in a macro scale (demanding the right to vote, etc) or a micro scale (defending themselves against an abusive partner) are frequently threatened with violence to silence them.

This is threatening a woman with violence to shut her up. And that's what makes this different from, say, a stupid flash game reenacting VTech or whatever. One contains an implicit message, whether intentional or unintentional, that the other completely lacks.

For that matter, there's also an issue of power. Historically, men have power and women are marginalized (as a general rule of thumb). Making a flash game where you beat up George W Bush has no threat to it, because he is A.) rich B.) white C.) male D.) the most powerful person on the planet. It is someone without power making a game about possessing that power. And a beat-up-Obama game, though possessing some uncomfortable racial overtones that would make it SIMILAR to the Sarkeesian one (since violence was used to silence "uppity" blacks too)... wouldn't still be as bad, since he's still rich, male, and the most powerful person in the world.

So no, despite your attempts to draw false equivalency, you really haven't done so.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

700th* post SPECTACULAR. Lets have a summary of all that has been discussed so far:

-It has been established that Ms Sarkeesian's main concern is her hatred of female sexuality being seen by her or anyone.
-It has been established that Ms Sarkeesian holds all gamers and the entire video games industry accountable for the minority who sent hate mail, to spite the support from most gamers, and how every famous person in history has received hate-mail
-It has not been established that there is any inherentproblem with depiction of female sexuality
-It has been established that female sexuality is not at odds with dominance, power or ability to progress the plot
-Females being sexy DOES NOT make them "less of a person" to spite how some might express a prejudice otherwise
-We have established that all segregation is wrong, just as racial segregation is racist, sex segregation is sexist.
-Ms Sarkeesian supports such Segregation
-Ms Sarkeesian doesn't need close to $160'000 for such a project
-Ms Sarkeesian has a critical lack of transparency in her project that takes in a vast amount of money
-Sarkeesian blames sexy adverts for sexual abuse on public transport
-Sarkeesian refuses to address the criticisms against her to spite taking the time to give Trolls attention they do not deserve
-Sex-Negative Prejudice is NOT a form of feminism
-Feminism is about empowering and enabling women, not saying that they can't show their skin.
-Sexy does not mean "sex object". Sex object is defined by how they lack all qualities of agency and only sex, not that there is any sexualisation.
-Sarkeesian is not the first person to ever be subject of a beat-up game, but also the past two MALE Presidents of the United States, that makes this NOT singling out for sexism.

*Ninjad!

Holy fuck you could not be more wrong about ANY of this if you fucking TRIED, dude.

It has been established that Ms Sarkeesian's main concern is her hatred of female sexuality being seen by her or anyone.

What? No. The exploitation of female sexuality and women as sex objects - and despite your uneducated claims, a sex object isn't just a personality-less wall flower; a sex object is any female whose sexuality/appearance is being manipulated for the purpose of appealing the Male Gaze.

So wait it's only a sex object if it's trying to turn on men? Jacob flashing his muscles for no reason doesn't count? Biased much? And I disagree with your definition even without the 'it only applies to women' part.

For instance, when Lara Croft, a (theoretically) well rounded character, stretches and bends over in idle animations, she is a sex object.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Lara do a lot of acrobatics in her games (I haven't played them)? If yes then stretching would actually make sense.

It has been established that Ms Sarkeesian holds all gamers and the entire video games industry accountable for the minority who sent hate mail, to spite the support from most gamers, and how every famous person in history has received hate-mail

And you know what? We all SHOULD be accountable.

Bullshit. First off we can't stop people from sending her hatemail, all we can do is discourage it which is what we've been doing for the most part. Second youtube is not a video game community.

Every famous person in history has received hate-mail, but few received coordinated attempts to silence them before they even have a chance to start talking.

She's had her say before and she's brought up game criticism before, she didn't just start talking.

Females being sexy DOES NOT make them "less of a person" to spite how some might express a prejudice otherwise

True. What does make them less of a person is that their presence in a game, and their being sexy, has everything to do with them *being made to be sexy to titillate a male audience.* These aren't women who woke up and decided to wear a low-cut blouse and short skirt because they felt like being sexy today - a perfectly valid choice for any woman! - but because they were designed that way by (again, usually male) designers to appeal to an (again, usually male) audience.

Why is that a problem? I get it's a problem if there's no variety outside of it, but if it's not then what's the problem? These are fictional women so why does it matter if they get 'objectified'?

We have established that all segregation is wrong, just as racial segregation is racist, sex segregation is sexist.

Providing an optional safe space for women is not segregation.

yes it is. It's not as bad as having no mixed cars but it is still technically segregation.

If it were "all men in this car, all women in this car," then that would be segregation. Women can still go into the mixed-gender cars, but there is now an option for women who don't want to have to deal with the fear of getting groped.

Because women are never sexually attracted to other women am I right? Or is that women would never be so evil as to grope someone?

Ms Sarkeesian doesn't need close to $160'000 for such a project

She asked for 6,000, which, if you've read stuff posted by some of the LRR guys or MovieBob on this very site, is actually pretty appropriate for a professional-quality web series of that length.

Source? And better production quality was a stretch goal of hers. She already had the equipment needed, she said it was all for "research".

Perhaps she wants a better camera or better software. Perhaps she wants to rent an actual studio space. Perhaps she wants better lighting.

She said research and that's it.

Perhaps she wants to do actual interviews

Then why not mention it? Everything else she's done has just been her speaking her opinions to a camera.

Ms Sarkeesian has a critical lack of transparency in her project that takes in a vast amount of money

BZZZT. She has constantly along the way talked about the stretch goals, et cetera. Beyond that, she has been no more "critically" untransparent than any other kickstarter. She has, however, told us what the money is being used for [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.379179.14861578] - at least, up until the point where she got way more than she could have wildly imagined, and is now trying to figure that out.

How is this any different from, say, writer Seth Godin asking for $40k for his new book [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/297519465/the-icarus-deception-why-make-art-new-from-seth-go], and taking in over $267k? Where is the outrage over RAWH WHERE IS THE TRANSPARENCY THIS IS A SCAM!!!

Because she has the consoles and there's no reason she can't use Let's Plays or emulators for most of her research. Why does she need the money at all? I've noticed you've been saying "maybe she needs it for X Y or Z instead of "she said she needs it for this". Yeah she has stretch goals but beyond that... Nothing.

Sarkeesian blames sexy adverts for sexual abuse on public transport

No, she blames sexy advertisements for creating a culture that encourages men to view women as objects, rather than people. And interestingly, studies show just this [http://www.livescience.com/20318-sexy-women-ads-objects.html] - a woman in her underwear is seen as an object, a man in his underwear is seen by both genders as a person. This, in turn, supports a society in which men are more comfortable sexually harassing or abusing women because it's easier for them to not see them as people.

From your link ""What?s unclear is, we don?t actually know whether people at a basic level recognize sexualized females or sexualized males as objects,""

And you're saying that it doesn't cause harm it just leads to a culture that does cause harm. That mean's your saying there's a link between the two.

Sarkeesian refuses to address the criticisms against her to spite taking the time to give Trolls attention they do not deserve

Wheat from the chaff. There's literally so much noise being thrown in her direction right now, I don't blame her. And given that much of the criticisms seem to have a sexist bent anyway...

I'll take poisoning the well and ad hominems for 200. Nice dismissive way to not address criticism.

Sarkeesian is not the first person to ever be subject of a beat-up game, but also the past two MALE Presidents of the United States, that makes this NOT singling out for sexism.

And yet, men have not been subject to a long history at violence and oppression at the hands of women.

Irrelevant, especially when you're talking people who didn't experience such oppression. I love though that you're trying to argue that women should be treated better than men in this area.

There is a very real contextual history of violence being used to silence and control women, and you are willfully ignoring it.

This game is not being used to silence anyone.

No offense dude, but you really don't know what you're talking about, so. I'm not going to bother.

Also, again, she has explained what the costs were for [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.379179-The-Big-Picture-Tropes-vs-MovieBob?page=12#14861578]. There are dozens of other costs that she perhaps could also have intended but that weren't put down; Kickstarters traditionally don't say what every single dime of their funding is going to be used for.

The people insisting that Sarkeesian post a breakdown of EVERY LAST BIT of her funding - when she has already explained what it will be used for as well as 90% of all kickstarters ever do - says far more about the people demanding it than it does her.

 

[jackalblue3141]

Look I disagree with pretty much everything that Sarkeesian says on her web series. I think she's a low-talent hack at best, a troll at worst, and yes I think her Tropes vs Women thing is a scam, but this is getting Way out of hand. This is not the way to deal with her.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

snip

Questions

1. Have you actually read the links you just provided as evidence?

2. Did the studies that I can't access being the first and the third actually state which companies and video game communities that intentionally use what Anita defines as "sexist" tropes are somehow sexist?

Cause I didn't see any sort of proof in the second link stated that somehow those groups were somehow sexist. But only that in 2008 when you look closer at the participation of women in relation to the MMO were not as active in playing compared to that of men. Although an interesting study to read as noted that while there is certainly the social aspect the content of the MMO does not hold the same appeal to women compared to men.

Strangely enough - of the three links I provided the 2nd is the only one that is readable in it's entirety. The first is a summary of a book. The second is a chapter from that same book. The third is an abstract about an academic article which provides an overview, context, and general findings of the study.

So, yes, I did read them to the extent possible. Though I will admit that I only skimmed through the actual chapter by Yee. Was it revelant? Yes - because it outlines the study of how game designers and players tend to believe there is some deep-rooted differentiation between the underlying desires male and female players have to play WoW or other socially engrossing MMOs.

Based on the survey the researcher(s) found that there weren't.

However, there are lovely little quotes from players such as the following:

"There are things that happen in-­game that make me embarrassed, as a woman and as a person who tries to be socially responsible, to be playing. For example, male players will talk about getting ?raped? without really thinking about it, things that happen will be referred to as ?gay,? which is offensive, people do crude things to player corpses in PvP [Player vs. Player settings], etc. (World of Warcraft, female, 29)"

or

When I played EQ, I was so sick and tired of being treated like a moron
or hit on 24?7 that I made a male character. The way people treat female chars and males in EQ was drastic, I had immediate respect. When on a female char, men think you don?t know how to play, cant be hardcore, and try to give you things to hit on you. Its annoying to say the least. (World of Warcraft, female, 35)

Which leads the researcher to posit that in WoW at least:

many female players have learned that it is danger­ous to reveal your real-­life gender in MMOs because they will be branded as incompetent and constantly propositioned; In other words, they must either accept the male-­subject position silently, or risk constant discrimination and harassment if they reveal that they are female.

This leads to believe you either did not actually read the piece you claimed to or your reading skills are rather limited.

3. How exactly are women disenfranchised? They aren't some minority, nor is there a legal standing that prevents any woman to become a computer programmer, artist, analyst, or even a lawyer and pursue a career in the video game industry. The barrier to work in the video game industry is the same for women as it is the same for men. It takes having a healthy work portfolio, a bit of experience, and a bit of luck having the right connections to network yourself as a potential valuable member to the team.

But what is stopping developers both men and women from making the content that women would like to have in video games? I don't think there is anything aside from if you can convert that want into an actual game mechanic.

disenfranchisedpast participle, past tense of dis·en·fran·chise (Verb)
Verb:
Deprive (someone) of the right to vote.
Deprived of power; marginalized.

Disenfranchisement can occur formally or informally. The fact that female players do not feel comfortable playing in a method that represents themselves through their avatar is a form of marginalization. It's funny we use the term avatar so loosely in gaming, because its roots are the literal manifestation of an entity into another world. An avatar isn't merely a means to which to interact with that world - it is the very embodiment of that person in that world.

The fact that female players feel uncomfortable trying to get other players to stop using terms like "rape" in a casual, pejorative sense in the context of beating and/or victimizing another player is depriving them of social power.

As for the culture, what is stopping men and women from creating new communities if they feel like some clan or guild is some barrier. Hell I've moved from guild to guild during my time playing World of Warcraft(Vanilla) and one of our guild leaders was a woman and she was our main tank. In other words, if she wasn't there, there was no raid. It's not like the internet has limited capacity to make new sites and meet new people and create new cultures.

What's particularly sad about the fact that you are posting this perspective on the Escapist Forums is that a there were probably a number of female community members who joined specifically because it is (generally) a site for thoughtful discourse on video games and video game culture. The sheer vitriol that some have expressed in response to Tropes Vs. Women may well have ruined that sense of community for some of them. In fact, the fact that you claim it is never worth taking the time to ask them how they feel may have furthered that.

I keep repeating over and over that you have female gamer's posting about their personal experiences as the recipients of these societal forces and yet you retort back with how all women wear high-heels because it makes them taller and feel good.

Stay classy

Thanks for being one of the only people in this entire thread who knows what the fuck he's (or she's) talking about btw

 

[Vault101]

You know what's funny? If it was a guy's face on the flash game getting beat on until inflammation occurs, no one would say a word. Heck, I'm sure there would be a good number of females who would find it funny.

Equality? Yeah right.

that does make this any less digusting

like I said before "this isnt equality! shes being sexist against men! so lets beat the ***** up! that'll show'em"

show'em your scum mabye

 

[DioWallachia]

Parhaps this would help to undertand the game maker position?

 

[xorinite]

Wow, you know I'm going to sound all conspiracy theorist here and say, the amount of times I've heard about this 'tropes vs women' thing borders on a viral marketing campaign, a successful one. Spamming certain forums known to result in trollage seems to work for such campaigns and is actively being employed.

Its like when everyone was running around calling people Justin Beiber fans as an insult, resulting in everyone hearing about Justin Beiber and a much higher amount of views on his stuff and presumably greater sales.

My response to this is the same as that. To switch off.

Well done with the marketing, I'm tired of hearing about the product and I'm not interested in it.

 

[Ramzal]

You know what's funny? If it was a guy's face on the flash game getting beat on until inflammation occurs, no one would say a word. Heck, I'm sure there would be a good number of females who would find it funny.

Equality? Yeah right.

that does make this any less digusting

like I said before "this isnt equality! shes being sexist against men! so lets beat the ***** up! that'll show'em"

show'em your scum mabye

Honestly, I don't care that people have done this with her. It's been done before with men, and no one has said a single thing outside "Well, he's not THAT big of a douche..." but when it's a woman, everyone is up in arms and ready to take out the chivalry stick.

And do not take this as condescending:

Let me clue you in on something. You know what actually IS holding back equal treatment? Reactions like this. As long as there is special treatment/awareness detail/defending women to a chivalrous length, you cannot have equality. Honestly, if women want equality, they are going to have to look at this and shrug and say "Eh, they make beat up flash games about a lot of things. This is no different."

 

[xorinite]

But the way these 'members' of that community are acting is worthy of nothing but our collective disgust, and attacking her like it somehow retroactively justifies their horrible behavior is just as revolting.

Which is because of the gaming community, not due to say spamming of certain forums rich in trollite for viral marketing purposes?

Tell me, what do you think would happen if I made a tropes vs black/white/latino people video series, and spammed that same forum, then left the comments open to demonstrate that you and the rest of gamers are essentially racist.

What kind of comments do you think would flood my video?
What would that tell you more about, the wider gaming community? a specific community? or the importance of trolls in viral marketing?

 

[Vault101]

Honestly, I don't care that people have done this with her. It's been done before with men, and no one has said a single thing outside "Well, he's not THAT big of a douche..." but when it's a woman, everyone is up in arms and ready to take out the chivalry stick.

And do not take this as condescending:

Let me clue you in on something. You know what actually IS holding back equal treatment? Reactions like this. As long as there is special treatment/awareness detail/defending women to a chivalrous length, you cannot have equality. Honestly, if women want equality, they are going to have to look at this and shrug and say "Eh, they make beat up flash games about a lot of things. This is no different."

yeah...but

this seems to be coming from a place of sexism....as a "reaction" to her whole thing with tropes versus women

in other cases if it were a guy its goit nothing to do with sexism..its got more to do with the fact those people think he's a douche

and ok, mabye its the same thing here and your right....its just I don't know, its mainly because of why people are doing this

 

[Vrex360]

Parhaps this would help to undertand the game maker position?

She spammed 4chan on June the 5th? The day she set up the kickstarter?

Even though she started the Kickstarter three weeks prior to that? And the first reported case of harrassment happened on June the 4th? And that picture used was one that:

Spoiler

Anyone could find and use?

Compelling evidence.

Granted there was one linked for May 17th (she made the kickstarter on the sixteenth) but I find it odd that the harrassment didn't happen until like three weeks later. Or that no one ever talked about it, nor was it ever used as 'evidence' against her until after the harrassment attack had blown over.

Simple fact is, anyone could have done that. A determined fan, a troll looking to bring about aggression towards her or any other reason. It could have been her but frankly I think that it's kind of unlikely.
We know SOMEONE spammed 4chan, not that she did. And until we have irrefutable evidence, I'd like it if people didn't try to use it against her and get ideas into the heads of the people who spammed and in some cases continued to spam during the Kickstarter event.

And regardless what this idiot seems content to ignore is that, far from the reason people are angry, the way they did it is unacceptible and is the reason people demonize them. Trying to seize her funds, having her videos marked as terrorism, spamming her inbox with threats of rape and death, making this little flash game and of course trying to seize her personal work and home number and her home address to post online so that it is entirely possible, though unlikely, for some psychopath to actually track her down and cause her harm.

"Waaaah she maybe potentially spammed 4Chan despite there being no solid evidence that it was her, a member of her group or that she was even aware of it! She's so meeeeeaaaann"

Grow up.

Seriously I wish people in the gaming community would stop scrambling around desperatley trying to find a way to demonize her or at least make it seem like the army of misogynist trolls are somehow not responsible or even worthy of praise. The Penny Arcade Kickstarter's been up for a while, and they are asking for way more. Where are the rape and death threats? Where's the 'beat them up' flash game? Where's the army of tinfoil hat BS videos trying to paint them as criminal masterminds? There aren't any because it's as naked and clear to see before everyone is that this outrage had fuck all to do with Anita asking for money.

The fact that anyone would convey their 'legitimate complaints' with any of the things I mentioned above, let alone all and more then yes game journalists should demonize them. Because this is not what rational people do when they are met with something they disagree with, this is what hate groups do!

If you don't want to be demonized then don't be a fucking demon.

There is no situation, ever where these people come out looking good. I just wish they would hurry up and understand that. Even if she did spam 4chan (I'm willing to accept that it is possible that she or someone else did) this reaction is still not acceptible and I'd still rather be on her side rather than the misogynist horde.

Because above all else she's proven that misogynist trolls are self defeating, their efforts to aggressively spam her out of existence and silence her only gave her more attention, funded the project several hundred times its original amount and made a lot more people aware and express disgust at them in the process.
They lost, and frankly that's not a bad thing where I sit.

Also check her tweets sometime: https://twitter.com/femfreq (July 2 specifically (sorry I don't know how to link individual tweets).

She IS using the money the way she said she was going to. Further debunking the 'scam' argument.

EDIT: Should probably mention that I've decided not to weigh in on this debate anymore. Call it cowardly but I've decided that I can't deal with the stress of these types of arguments anymore, so do not quote me if you expect me to respond.