Games you like that you can admit can be a bit cringe-worthy sometimes

[The Lunatic]

Out of interest, d'you believe any art can be problematic?

I'd find it rather odd if the answer were "no", but I'd find it rather odd for other reasons if the answer was "yes", because that would mean games were uniquely exempt, and I can't see why they would be.

Not really. The entire point of art is to make you feel something.

Doesn't have to be positive. You can feel outraged and disgusted by art. That does not mean the art needs to stop existing because you're offended by it.

Though, do be aware, I assume "Problematic" to mean, "Needing changing/removing". As.. Well, that's typically how one resolves problems.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...Every video game where female characters have 'boob armour' or 'boob socks', where it looks like someones come along and vacuumed sealed the titties. Boobs don't work that way guys, and neither does armour. Looking at you, World of Warcraft, where damn near everything women wear in that still showing off their tits.

Spoiler: so no more shit like this

WHAT KIND OF PLATE ARMOUR SHOWS OFF YOUR STOMACH?????

And to be clear, this isn't an opposition to fanservice or anything, just a desire for it to be done right and not lazily. If you want a character to be fanservice-y, go nuts, just give them appropriately fanservice-y armour instead of slapping them into a poorly-shaped armour plate. Hell, you can even have the character wearing platemail dance around in her skivvies outside combat or whatever, just make the god damn armour functional. Fukkin' christ.

Spoiler: so more shit like this, really

Bonus points here, since Aveline is busty as hell outside her armour, it's just inside her armour her boobs act like boobs do, and not stick through the fucking metal.

 

[Samechiel]

I'm afraid you're going to have to convince me that a game can even BE "problematic" before I can admit to anything.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

So... You're wanting to know if I like stuff that doesn't fit in with the current PC Tumblrite crowd, then.

The Dead or Alive series needs no introduction - its male roster is just there as an accusation-deflecting aside. Team Ninja knows damn well people support this series for the female character designs and the egregious boob physics. As a fighting game, though? It's actually pretty damn solid, and I'm only worth a damn with fighting games if you give me one that has Christie Monteiro in it.

Mortal Kombat's recent iterations are fun, but they feel a bit stiff, like the characters aren't fighting so much as they're posing... The series has its own problems, too - the male gaze is pretty heavily called upon - but the setting is just so zany and so upfront and frank with how nonsensical it is that I can't find it in me to land a serious criticism.

It's an entire fighting game series that reads as "KUNG FU AND HORROR FLICKS ARE AMAZING, YOU GUYS! ALSO, LOVECRAFT RAWKS!" There's no way in Hell I'm pointing at that and accusing it of sexism. Realism is the bare minimum I need to look at a cultural product on the grounds of moral accountability.

Honestly, a lot of gaming's modern offerings fall there, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing I've played recently carries a message that's *deliberately* degrading or disparaging - even the Saints Row series' super-kooky approach takes the sluttiest of all pre-baked outfits and turns it into something your female mob boss of the take-no-prisoners variety could feasibly wear unironically. Even if you crank that Boob Slider to the max, FemBoss is as far from feminine or ladylike as you could possibly imagine.

As said above, I can't point at a ridiculously-endowed cartoon character and go "Shield thine eyes!" without coming across as either prude or hypocritical. Jessica Rabbit isn't sexist - she's a *cartoon character*, and a solidly empowered and independent one, at that.

I mean, yeah, there's stuff out there that *is* sexist on a more literal level - but can you honestly expect people who play HuniePop or the Senran Kagura series to acknowledge that? They don't need to - they know they're playing what amounts to sexist dross; they just don't care!

As that's the thing with games, honestly: people will find enjoyment in them no matter if another group of people is standing by the wayside, waving protest signs and warning the general public of the horrible, horrible sins of the Average White Cisgendered Middle-Class Male Game Designer.

So play whatever it is you damn well please, even if it amounts to "Watch Boobs Jiggle for Eighty Hours: The Return of the Breast Gods". You could play Solitaire that someone, somewhere could find something classist or ableist about it.

 

[Dalisclock]

How about none? Sexism is hatred of a gender, I can't name a single game that leaves me with the impression "Wow, the developers really fucking hate women!"

Beyond: Two Souls gives me the impression that David Cage hates women, or at least he hates Ellen Page. His other games also get really creepy as well, as far as terrible things almost happening to women is concerned.

 

[Vigormortis]

All of 'm?

I mean, shit, every game is a bit sexist. So is every movie and television series for that matter.

Is it even possible to not be the tiniest bit sexist/objectifying/racist?

I doubt anyone sane could argue Tetris is sexist.

Fat shaming, color racism, and phallic shapes entering spaces without consent. Tetris is the most bigoted game ever.

Damn it! Beaten to the punch. Well played.

But! Let's not forget subjugation, classism, forced adherence to social and societal norms, and genocide[footnote]After all, the game does 'delete' entire block chains, based solely on a shared geographic location.[/footnote].

Tetris is a veritable clusterfuck of bigotry and social issues. It's a wonder it's still played at all!

 

[Phasmal]

Snip

What the hell man.
'They didn't need to have a job? They didn't need to have political representation?'
Who the fuck cares, they weren't allowed.

Seriously. Ew. If you're gonna talk about what women like, I can guarantee you- women like rights, and choice.

EDIT: I'm still wtf-ing about that post. 'Those women were probably happy so who cares if they didn't have rights!'.
Just.... wtf, Escapist.
W.
T.
F.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Snip

What the hell man.
'They didn't need to have a job? They didn't need to have political representation?'
Who the fuck cares, they weren't allowed.

Seriously. Ew. If you're gonna talk about what women like, I can guarantee you- women like rights, and choice.

1) Neither men nor women had political representation, unless they had enough money. And politics was usually about war (which men fought), trade (which men conducted) or taxes (which men eventually paid); most of which was over the heads of the common people and they certainly didn't get a say in it. And if a certain woman happened to be born into a politically active family, do you think they didn't have any say in what their men actually decided? Of course they did.

Spoiler: Relevant vids

2) When a job most of the time means 'backbreaking work that'll get you killed at 30', and someone will have to take care of your home and children, do you want to choose it?

Yes, women like rights and choice, but choosing to have more rights has consequences and responsibilities. People often rather have fewer rights, just to avoid those consequences. We see that now, we've seen it in the past. There's been plenty of resistance to having more rights.

 

[Amaror]

Here's a question for you, do you believe it's generally worth making a fuss over, or has the criticism gone to far?

For God's Sakes I am not trying to make a fuss over anything.
I was trying to have a fun conversation about games using cheap techniques and silly things, but it seems the majourity of people just can't look objectively at their hobby anymore. Mention the S-word and they immediatly assume you are trying to take away their games and burn their house down.
I thought that maybe, MAYBE people might be mature enough to admit that sometimes their beloved games might not be perfect in every way, shape or form. But that seems to be asking for way too much here.
I don't care how many naked women, men or anything are in your games, you can enjoy yourself as much as you like.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

And even now you'll not find many women complaining that there are not enough female garbagemen, female mine workers, female builders (female convicts?). No, it's only about the safe, well-paying jobs, like managers or doctors.

I have seen women complain about two of three of those, and often. Women want opportunities. For people educated, and therefore the type more likely to get online and write passionate, wordy articles, that means high paying jobs for the educated. But for women just trying to survive that means unskilled labor. I've spent a lot of time with the very poor of the western world, and I can tell you that in the slums there are plenty of women who would kill for a job as a garbage collector or a construction worker. I actually knew women who worked in both of those professions. The construction worker especially hated how sexist the environment was.

The only one of the three I have not seen is women wanting to have the opportunity to earn money mining, and I suspect I only have not seen that because I have never spent much time near a mine.

 

[flying_whimsy]

I'm going to echo what a lot of other people have said and say that I don't really go for the whole 'problematic' descriptor: it's just a pc buzzword right now. However, since this discussion is basically about those bits of sexification in games we don't really like: for me it's probably zero suit samus.

Okay, I get that there's potential both in story telling and in gameplay to have her armor stripped away; from a narrative standpoint it's a gold mine. It hasn't been used that way aside from the first time it happened. Basically, it's just become an excuse to have one of the strongest female game characters ever fight while wearing nothing but her underwear. Don't get me wrong, I think she's hot and would have really enjoyed her as an addition to a doa game, but when they put her in just her zero suit (with stripper heels, no less) in the latest smash bros...well, it genuinely bothered me. Plus, I'd swear they gave her a bigger bust.

One thing that always leaves me conflicted about it is that she likely wouldn't care: she was raised by alien bird people and has spent the bulk of her life alone and either in her space ship or in power armor. I suspect she wouldn't even understand the concept of sexy unless it was explained to her with diagrams and a lot of combat metaphors. If she were a real person, I'd probably argue that she was being exploited at this point.

And to talk about a game that is problematic in a non-sexist way: I'd say it's probably a toss up between cod/battlefield or lol/dota: the communities surrounding that stuff are so toxic I don't really understand how anyone enjoys that. Plus, it has a really negative effect on other games both in how they are designed (to copy success) and in players (that toxicity tends to carry over).

 

[Amaror]

Relax, I'm not accusing you, I genuinly want to know whether or not you think these discussions are warranted or overblown.
So here's why it's a touchy subject:
People are sick of being accused of being bigoted for enjoying something and then there are people who can see the value of having the discussion but are sick of being accused of being too sensitive.
This has now been going on for years and it continues to be a divide between large groups of vocal gamers. Expect negative comments.
As a counter to what you just wrote to me, I can claim that people have an inability to see past what is obviously fiction and entertainment, and allow themselves to be hurt by what is ultimately harmless.
What's worse, being childish and protecting what you love or going out of your way to be offended?
Everyone has their own perspective and experiences, but not all are relevant or to be taken seriously. I obviously have my prefference

Ok, well personally I am not really sure.
On the one hand I do think that these discussions and controversies are generallly overblown and exagerated. Like the controversy about Assassins Creed Coop-Characters being all male, when these were pretty much skins you would have never seen on your own character anyway.
On the other hand I do feel like these outrages, as rediculous as they may be, sometimes had positive consequences. Sometimes it seems it is enough to just be loud enough about something. As we have, for example, seen that Assassins Creed in it's newest Iterations did have multiple characters of different genders which is something really positive I think. So as rediculous as these outrages may be they do sometimes have positive effects.
Otherwise they are very often misguided and exagerated, like the outrage about a single joke on a gravestone in Pillars of Eternity that was put there by a community member.

Generally I think discussions like that are largely fine when they are focussing on asking for something more for one group. They are not so good in my opinion when they are asking or demanding the removal of something, exspecially if that something is optionel. It's ok to ask for something fun for you as well, but asking for something, that's fun for someone else, to be removed is just not cool.

 

[GundamSentinel]

And even now you'll not find many women complaining that there are not enough female garbagemen, female mine workers, female builders (female convicts?). No, it's only about the safe, well-paying jobs, like managers or doctors.

I have seen women complain about two of three of those, and often. Women want opportunities. For people educated, and therefore the type more likely to get online and write passionate, wordy articles, that means high paying jobs for the educated. But for women just trying to survive that means unskilled labor. I've spent a lot of time with the very poor of the western world, and I can tell you that in the slums there are plenty of women who would kill for a job as a garbage collector or a construction worker. I actually knew women who worked in both of those professions. The construction worker especially hated how sexist the environment was.

The only one of the three I have not seen is women wanting to have the opportunity to earn money mining, and I suspect I only have not seen that because I have never spent much time near a mine.

Well, I must say that's good to hear. At least that means that people with actual legitimate concerns also have a voice. Because you have to admit that in media and politics it's usually the upper class jobs that get addressed, especially management positions. Because that's more what I meant by mentioning it here. What I meant is that no one will ever feel there is a need for 50/50 representation in those low-paying jobs. No one complains that men fill most of the ass-end of the job market.

And yeah, accessibility to low-paying jobs is usually more open to men, because they are often physical or dirty jobs with bad working hours. Because it will always be predominantly male environment, it will always be a breeding ground for sexism, no matter how many quota a government would implement. Women will continue to have to prove themselves. My own sister had similar problems when she started work as a large-animal veterinarian. Farmers would rather have a big man handling their cows than a skinny girl. Really shitty for women who want to or have to work there, but the way I see it, there's very little to be done about it. It'll take a long time for that to change. I suppose by that time we'll have robots handling all the heavy lifting...

 

[major_chaos]

I didn't hate Dead Space 3, but there was absolutely no excuse for turning Ellie into a useless whimpering damsel who can't handle her own (introduced for no reason) psycho boyfriend let alone a necromorph. Honestly it should have been her as the second player character being badass like she was in DS2 not sergeant beefslab.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

alpha protocol is pretty good but i don't much like the fact that you can have sex with all the female characters in one playthrough and while some female characters have enjoyable dialouge they fall into pretty cliche roles like "earpiece lady", "innocent hostage" and the out of the twowomen who actually fight one wears a sports bra in russia during winter while the other is mute and gets three scenes in total. it seems like the writers wanted to have some strong female characters but had completely the wrong idea of what that actually means

 

[babinro]

Most if not every WWE wrestling game I've played.

This is more in the design of the create a wrestler feature. Here is a game that's all about living out your fantasy of becoming a wrestler and acting alongside the tv stars. Yet when it comes to creating yourself you're typically forced into an unrealistically toned and buffed model.

It's as though WWE has never once hired a wrestler who didn't look like a traditional model or body builder.

 

[Silvanus]

Define 'property', because, in most historical societies, men had major legal obligations to their wives. Men who treated their wives badly or just plain failed to provide were usually ostracized by the family and society as a whole. I don't know about other parts of the world, but in most of medieval Europe (up to the early 19th century), men had to take almost all the legal liability for their wives' actions (usually excluding murdering their husbands).

Men had legal obligations to their property, too. Men who treated their wives badly were simply not usually ostracised; I don't know where you're getting that from. Beatings were common. Forbidding them from leaving the home was common.

Neither had men, in most cases. Arranged marriages were usually a family matter, nothing to do with the people actually involved.

Not all marriages were arranged; many were, but many were chosen. Only the men could ever choose.

Not really. Marriage in most societies was a big deal, often even sacred. Nobody trying to get out of it is going to get points for that. The reason 'staying faithful' was more important for women, is purely because of the biological reasons for marriage: men provide food/protection, women provide children. Unfaithful women don't uphold their part of the bargain, while layabout men don't hold up theirs and were usually punished severely for it.

"Get points"? The fact remains that men had the choice, and women did not. Entering a relationship does not somehow sign you into a "bargain" which involves you having to stay. That's obscene.

Not really.

Uhrm, yes, they did. I've studied this. They were often expected to follow the family's trade, or the few available to them, and geography was also very restrictive, but some element of choice inarguably existed. None at all existed for women.

Women, especially those in more well-to-do families, didn't need to have a job at all. Managing a household and looking after the children was more than enough work. Plus, most work was physically demanding. Why would someone pay a woman for what a man would be better at?

Oh, for goodness' sake. You cannot really make an argument that it is right and proper that all forms of work be closed to women.

As were virtually all men.

Most, yes. All, no. And, depending on the precise time within the Medieval period, there may have existed some form of education for the lower classes, too-- though only for males.

A women's life was in and around the house. The number of political decisions that even remotely touched upon female life was very small indeed. Same for most men, really. Money ruled politics, not gender. Poor people had no representation, be they man or woman.

This is ridiculous; you're justifying the denial of all political representation, arguing that they shouldn't be offered it because they don't need it (a tremendously paternalist and patronising position), based on the intense restriction of what women were allowed to do. Once again, you cannot make an argument that it is right and proper.

Actually, I would urge you to make the case to any women you may know, that they don't really need such things, and as such shouldn't be given them.

Where were the mass female protests throughout the ages? If it was all so bad, surely some would have risen up against the establishment? Why is it that this only started happening now in this modern age of easier jobs and social security? Because women had no need for it then. They do now.

That's a ridiculous conclusion to draw, frankly. These were people conditioned from birth to death to view their social position as unchanging, and social mobility as impossible-- such was intentionally done by the powers-that-be, by denying literacy and power to the serfs. If you take a lack of organised protest to mean that the system was fine, then that would lead you to conclude that religious violence, oppressive state violence, complete dictatorship, and rigid economic hierarchy are also perfectly fine and just.

Not really. The entire point of art is to make you feel something.

Doesn't have to be positive. You can feel outraged and disgusted by art. That does not mean the art needs to stop existing because you're offended by it.

Though, do be aware, I assume "Problematic" to mean, "Needing changing/removing". As.. Well, that's typically how one resolves problems.

This entire thread is about art that we consider problematic, but still love, so presumably we don't want it to stop existing.

I think you're assuming an extremism that just isn't there.