How can "gamers" and "social justice warriors" get along?

[NoeL]

The accusation that a resistance to progressive inclusivity must stem from a position of fear or hatred is part of the "party line"

That's not what I said. I said that it's the bigoted resistance to progression that's met with hostility, not that all resistance to progression is bigoted. We've been having a perfectly civil conversation from either end of the debate, have we not? I haven't accused you of fear/hatred, have I?

they're making a value judgment about the legitimacy of a viewpoint and using that as the core of their attack. So, yeah, that's why it's precisely a No True Scotsman a lot of the time.

That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the distinction between "progressive" and "reasonable progressive" and preemptively addressing any argument that would claim I'm using "reasonable progressive" in a no true Scotsman way (i.e. "reasonable progressives are progressives that agree with me.")

That's the kind of knee-jerk bullshit I'd like to see less of.

Hear hear.

I thought we were talking about people who purchase and play games?

Why would you think that? I was talking about the visibility of gaming in modern culture, and how it appears to anyone outside gaming. I was comparing it to movies/music/books, where even someone that doesn't engage in them as a pastime has an accurate enough understanding of the medium. They wouldn't think pop music is ALL music because many other genres of music are still highly visible in modern culture, but for someone that isn't into gaming it's not just possible, but likely they have no understanding beyond violent war games, kids toys, Pac Man, Mario and Angry Birds. So where someone new to music might say "I don't like pop, but maybe I'll check out classical/jazz/rock/metal/rap/etc.", someone new to gaming would say "I don't like shooty stuff, so I guess games aren't for me." As wide as you and I know gaming to be, it's only a very narrow slice that has any real public visibility.

Perhaps this is a minor distinction but I feel it's an important one: mainstream games aren't tailored to white males because they hold the somehow important qualities of being white and male, they're aimed at white males because they happen to be the mainstream (most people in the Western world are white, males are still typically the breadwinners, more males play games than females, etc).

I don't think the distinction is important at all, nor did I ever claim white males were targeted because white males are somehow "better" than everyone else. White males are targeted because (in the West) blacks and women didn't have the same opportunities to get into computer engineering in the 50's/60's (maybe they would have lacked interest too, but we can't know), which lead to white males making games that they enjoy, which lead to predominantly other white males becoming interested in gaming (socioeconomic factors also played a role here, as gaming was an expensive pastime and whites often had (and still have, which is why they're still the primary target) more disposable income than blacks), which spawned decades of games being produced primarily for white males. That is why white males are "mainstream" - because gaming culture was built around building games for white males. There's no inherent reason a middle-aged black woman would be less interested in gaming than an adolescent white male, it's only that way because the market has done nothing to appeal to anything broader. And that's what progressives are trying to address/accomplish - to get more people interested in gaming and create a medium that serves everybody in the same way movies, music and books do. The young white male market is still likely to be the biggest for some time due to the aforementioned socioeconomic factors and general history of video games, but we still can/should try to include others.

We wouldn't call Transformers "a film for white males", would we?

We would.

Perhaps the two descriptions are as good as synonymous, but why bring sex and race into the equation gratuitously? A black male isn't going to by default not enjoy it; it's not excluding anyone.

There's nothing gratuitous about the fact the movie was made for/marketed at white adolescent males. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's call a spade a fucking spade. And it does "exclude" certain groups by virtue of not appealing to (and occasionally outright insulting) those groups - but again, there's nothing wrong with this. There are movies made for black adolescent males too, like Friday or White Chicks (you'll have to pardon my ignorance - as a white male in a predominantly white country I'm not exposed to a lot of cinema targeted at blacks) and there's nothing wrong with that either. It would, however, be problematic if Tranformers and movies like it were the only movies that got played in cinemas, the only movies that got aired on tv, and the only movies you could find in movie stores. Are you starting to see what the problem with gaming's public image is now?

Feel free to clarify what the progressive position is, but from what I see, it seems to be a demand that an established industry come together and perform an unprecedented act of collaboration in risking millions of dollars to create games that include elements that are untested and aren't considered to appeal to the bulk of mainstream consumers. The idea that this change could be a gradual process or that progressives could provide proof-of-concept through some indie hits before the AAA-market jumps on board is also regularly rejected as being too little, too late.

Two points:
1) The idea that indies can drive the change isn't rejected at all - in fact it's very much embraced and encouraged. It's not even 'too late'... but it is 'too little' if there's going to be any real change before the distant future. Indies should keep leading the charge but they can't win alone.
2) Something not appealing to the bulk of mainstream consumers isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it's not offensive to them you're not going to lose sales, and if people outside the mainstream audience find it appealing you could get even more sales. We're not asking them to sink millions of dollars into a knitting simulator for grandma or something, we're asking for little additions/tweaks that widen the game's target audience a bit more. To use the example of ACU again - they're not going to lose sales by including an optional female character, but they could potentially gain sales by including one. Yes they're risky and untested, which means publishers aren't going to do it unless they, like you suggested, see it work in an indie game (which is unlikely (but still possible) since, as stated before, even terrible AAA games tend to sell better than even the best indies (bar a handful of exceptions), and the best AAA games tend to do even better so they're just going to model their new games after those instead) or are so scared of the negative publicity for not doing it that they consider it a worthy investment (which is where whiny, annoying SJWs come into play).

I have no idea what Korra is but I'm guessing it's an example of something that breaks the traditional mold of majority characters? OK, great! I'm all in favour of more people taking risks and diversifying the medium, especially if that's what the consumers want. But it has to be a voluntary process. The idea that people feel they can strong-arm the industry into a new direction if they lobby hard enough and shout loud enough is obnoxious.

Obnoxious, perhaps, but effective. And if enough people feel the same way you can start to see the change people want faster than if they took the non-obnoxious route.

 

[carnex]

-snip-

Well, I see your point. But, again, that is a case foe exceptionalism.

Why is potential rape used for female and not male victims. I wonder. How about because it doe not cause nearly the same effect. Every action against "conspirators" in that game falls under same category for me. Extreme violation against integrity of a person. Sexual or not. I don't see any reason to set some special rules for one thing or the other. It's you and others that make the same case that make "sexual predation" a special case.

Now, I really must stop on this vague notion because I'm slipping into internationalization of sociology behind it and analytic of origins of that human behavior. That would take pages to properly put together and nothing here is worth it. It's a gaming forum.

As for GTA, how is that sexual violence? You enter into verbal contract with her (see, this is how it goes when you start intellectualizing) with her obligation being to provide you with sexual satisfaction and your obligation being to procure payment for provided service. In game nothing can interfere with that process once it's being made (the "rocking car animation starts). Only after that contract if fulfilled you can, just like you could before the contract, and just like you can do with any other character in game, kill her in hopes of her dropping useful item. No sexual violence occurs and game actually prevents you from committing it.

You can interpret thing however you like but that does not make it so.

Captcha: points dont matter
point taken captcha, will stop...

 

[Batou667]

Alrighty, that's reasonable.

Films, games, books, do not exist in a vacuum-- they're given context by what came before, and what else is available. Trends only really exist when we look at the entire market (or a lot of it), and as I understand it, this argument is all about trends. Individual examples may be used to illustrate a trend, but no one example is the issue.

So, say, a game with a grizzled straight white dude as its protagonist is absolutely fine. It could well be an awesome game (like Uncharted). The only issue I have (and, as I understand it, most who argue for diversity have) is that the trends favour these characteristics predominantly, to the exclusion of imagination and innovation and a diverse cast.

It's not necessary for a character to reflect you in a game, not at all. I love numerous games with protagonists that don't reflect me. However, when the dominance of a certain trend is such that I can find no, or almost no, characters that I can relate to in other respects... it can become alienating. Individual games are not the problem (well, unless they flagrantly and unironically mine stereotypes, and even then, they're not really a main concern).

Having a wealth of characters in books and films that a watcher/reader can relate to is a tremendously good thing. I would just like people who have that to recognise that not all of us do, and to empathise when we say we'd like it.

That's the issue as I see it, anyway. It's probably a good idea to have it written out here without any aggression or hyperbole surrounding it, so I'm grateful you asked.

OK, thanks for explaining your take on it. Your explanation was refreshingly free from the usual negative stance taken by the progressive activists - the blaming, the accusations of emotional immaturity and being scared of women and hateful of minorities, and the insinuation that gaming, both the culture and the industry, is some kind of super-secret white boy's club that benefits men and excludes everyone else in a convenient parallel of Patriarchy theory. And you're right, we should be framing the pro-diversity argument in terms of the benefits of more variety, broadened appeal, bringing new people into the hobby and improving the quality of writing. And as long as that's the form the argument is taking and the limit to which it makes claims, hell, hand me a placard and I'll join the march.

What I object to is the the implication that games that don't tick enough progressive boxes are a bad thing, and they're problematic, and anybody who enjoys and defends them is embodying and perpetuating a racist/sexist/hostile gaming culture. As you pointed out, an individual case of a straight white man rescuing a helpless blonde woman is fine, it's when every game regurgitates that same scenario that it becomes less than ideal. But the problem with that objection is that gaming isn't a monolith or a hivemind - game companies aren't calling each other up and coordinating their plotlines or deciding whose turn it is to use a certain trope. The whole process is a convoluted and not particularly directed process of replicating memes, adapting existing material, and occasionally innovating, with profit as usually the sole ultimate determining factor. Any attempt to change the medium has to acknowledge that.

Well, it's not really such a radical suggestion. Films and books function very well as media with greater diversity than games. Hell, some of the greatest examples of literature and film were bogged down in criticism that they were being too radical-- and yet, classics were born.

If films and books have more diversity, I'd be inclined to chalk that up to them both being much older forms of media than games - and actually they're both mediums that are rife with their own cliches and tropes. Video games are, what, 50 years old if we generously include the very first stumbling attempts at making playing with an oscilloscope fun? Imagine the variety, or rather the lack thereof, in books 50 years after the printing press was invented, or in film 50 years after zoetropes were produced. Gaming is a young medium, we shouldn't despair that the gaming equivalent to Shakespeare hasn't happened yet.

 

[Batou667]

That's not what I said. I said that it's the bigoted resistance to progression that's met with hostility, not that all resistance to progression is bigoted. We've been having a perfectly civil conversation from either end of the debate, have we not? I haven't accused you of fear/hatred, have I?

No, but there are a lot of progressive activists out there who are a lot less polite than you.

Why would you think that? I was talking about the visibility of gaming in modern culture, and how it appears to anyone outside gaming.

To be blunt, people outside of gaming (and few people truly are these days) don't matter - and if they're not buying games, why should companies cater to their tastes? Sure, there's an argument to be made for people who are nonplussed by the games currently available but who potentially could be enticed by different games - but I'd consider them already within the broader sphere of gaming. But overall, I'd like games companies to cater to gamers, not non-gamers; that just seems like common sense.

I don't think the distinction is important at all, nor did I ever claim white males were targeted because white males are somehow "better" than everyone else. White males are targeted because (in the West) blacks and women didn't have the same opportunities to get into computer engineering in the 50's/60's (maybe they would have lacked interest too, but we can't know), which lead to white males making games that they enjoy, which lead to predominantly other white males becoming interested in gaming (socioeconomic factors also played a role here, as gaming was an expensive pastime and whites often had (and still have, which is why they're still the primary target) more disposable income than blacks), which spawned decades of games being produced primarily for white males. That is why white males are "mainstream" - because gaming culture was built around building games for white males. There's no inherent reason a middle-aged black woman would be less interested in gaming than an adolescent white male, it's only that way because the market has done nothing to appeal to anything broader. And that's what progressives are trying to address/accomplish - to get more people interested in gaming and create a medium that serves everybody in the same way movies, music and books do. The young white male market is still likely to be the biggest for some time due to the aforementioned socioeconomic factors and general history of video games, but we still can/should try to include others.

Sorry, but I still consider most of this reasoning incorrect. Within popular media there's a huge amount of cross-cultural appeal. I have Indian friends who listen to RnB, I know black people who are huge Anime fans. There are whole communities of white kids who love Japanese/Korean culture and media. Far from the cultural divide being some impassable barrier, it's something that people cross every day, and in some cases actually seek out in part because of the appeal of exoticism or cultural differences.

I'd also challenge the idea that white males make games starring white males that you need to be a white male gamer to fully enjoy. I can enjoy playing Sonic The Hedgehog despite being neither a hedgehog nor a Japanese programmer. I can enjoy Tetris despite not being Russian. My middle-aged mother has played Age of Empires (1, vanilla) daily for the past 10 years despite it being a game about warfare, full of men, and presumably developed by a male-majority team.

None of this is an argument against diversity, and as I said before I think diversity and variety are desirable if just for interest and appeal. But I flat-out disagree with the idea that we NEED a mirroring type of representation to enjoy games, let alone representation of our own demographic in development. (And hell, foreign dev teams tend to make games that are indistinguishable from the mainstream anyway - Minecraft doesn't have a notably Swedish aesthetic to it, GTA V isn't full of Scottish accents, etc).

Two points:
1) The idea that indies can drive the change isn't rejected at all - in fact it's very much embraced and encouraged. It's not even 'too late'... but it is 'too little' if there's going to be any real change before the distant future. Indies should keep leading the charge but they can't win alone.
2) Something not appealing to the bulk of mainstream consumers isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it's not offensive to them you're not going to lose sales, and if people outside the mainstream audience find it appealing you could get even more sales. We're not asking them to sink millions of dollars into a knitting simulator for grandma or something, we're asking for little additions/tweaks that widen the game's target audience a bit more. To use the example of ACU again - they're not going to lose sales by including an optional female character, but they could potentially gain sales by including one. Yes they're risky and untested, which means publishers aren't going to do it unless they, like you suggested, see it work in an indie game (which is unlikely (but still possible) since, as stated before, even terrible AAA games tend to sell better than even the best indies (bar a handful of exceptions), and the best AAA games tend to do even better so they're just going to model their new games after those instead) or are so scared of the negative publicity for not doing it that they consider it a worthy investment (which is where whiny, annoying SJWs come into play).

1 - I don't think it's possible to puff out our chests, put our hands on our hips, and tell a billion-dollar worldwide industry to change on a dime. This whole metaphor of "battling" and "winning the war" is a red herring. It's about placing pebbles in the stream now and seeing the course of the water change miles downstream. Or you can try standing under a waterfall and shouting "I've decided water should go up from now on, wurgleblurgle glubglub blubble", that's fine too. Just don't take it personally when you get soaking wet and the water obstinately carries on falling downwards.

2 - We could make exactly the same argument for keeping things the way they are - if current gamers don't mind the tropes, and the people who do object buy the games anyway, it's not hurting sales... not that I think that's a good thing, I'm just pointing out that you can't blame the market for taking the path of least resistance.

Obnoxious, perhaps, but effective. And if enough people feel the same way you can start to see the change people want faster than if they took the non-obnoxious route.

Really? Sarkeesian started her kickstarter a little over two years ago (I don't want to derail the discussion, and of course it's not all about her, but she marks the point where the zeitgeist changed). What have the results been of that? The discourse has become more politically charged, and possibly a few devs have avoided adding features that they thought would be crucified by the increasingly shouty and left-wing gaming press - but where's the blossoming creativity, the innovation, the wonderful spectrum of new directions and new possibilities that appeal to an ever-broadening community of gamers? It hasn't happened. In fact, there's been no inkling of all of this negative and accusatory fist-shaking having had any positive or tangible effect at all. Please set me straight if I'm incorrect in thinking that.

 

[Buckshaft]

People need to follow the example of Bill and Ted.

"Be Excellent to Each Other."

(Cue "EW CISHET WHITE MALES RARGRRGGRRGGGGGGHHHH)

Sure. Let's have diversity in games. But let's have it because it allows games to reach a greater number of people and have wide appeal, not because some white-guilt addled basement dweller can't sleep at night unless they feel like they prostrate themselves enough, or because a board of directors somewhere is afraid that the company's next project will earn the prestigious award of "Worst thing since Hitler/Saddam/British Occupation according to Tumblr".

On another note, fuck tumblr, and fuck anyone who thinks that shouting and bawling and encouraging Oh Dearism is actually helping anything. And I'd just like to say sorry to the escapist forum mods for having to put up with at least one topic like this a week. You truly go above and beyond for us.

 

[Angelblaze]

Never seen this review, I hated it, naturally, but the reaction was appalling, completely over the top, needlessly rude and aggressive. It was also sadly predictable.

And naturally, so was your comment.

The review was a classic case of SJW "fait accompli" story telling; endless claims about "misogyny", "problems with women" and the such all presented as fact and not as the opinion of someone desperately trying to underline their liberal credentials as they struggle to come to terms with their gender studies 101 syllabus. Many, many people, in fact the large majority don't care and/or don't believe this central claim that media should be forced, manipulated or has a duty to reflect some manufactured notion of total "equality". That's not how art works. Indeed, to suggest so is scary, Orwellian and wrong - no matter how wonderfully intentioned, it's still a minority trying to force their views on the majority at a fundamental level, the communication of ideas through art.

Even people you may think are bigots get to create bigot art!

Yes but as a people, is it wrong for people to say 'This is bad and we need to move away from this'?
Hasn't any society, when fighting against a social norm previously thought morally correct, started with a rare few that were abused and harassed? I believe the 'SJW' population, fufilled this requirement.

Further more, I would think that is perfectly covered under her first amendment rights, to call a game how and what she sees it, just like you call her review what you see it. 'Over-the-top.' as it may be.
The threats against her and 'fighting words' in the comments aren't.

It's the AS problem all over again, minus the money and popularity. She says she doesn't like something, she gets rape/beating/murder threats. It's common, doesn't make it right.

It's a really basic freedom to reflect the world as you see it.

If you refuse to see that women are actually more numerous in the population then men, then isn't that a problem?

If the games being made by artists are, in fact, a representation of how their creators see the world, then yes, it is a problem because it represents the beliefs of the creators.
The problem is, however, most of the 'big name' titles coming out are not made for 'art's' sake.

They are made for money. Shit tons and shit tons of money.

 

[Angelblaze]

People need to follow the example of Bill and Ted.

"Be Excellent to Each Other."

(Cue "EW CISHET WHITE MALES RARGRRGGRRGGGGGGHHHH)

Sure. Let's have diversity in games. But let's have it because it allows games to reach a greater number of people and have wide appeal, not because some white-guilt addled basement dweller can't sleep at night unless they feel like they prostrate themselves enough, or because a board of directors somewhere is afraid that the company's next project will earn the prestigious award of "Worst thing since Hitler/Saddam/British Occupation according to Tumblr".

On another note, fuck tumblr, and fuck anyone who thinks that shouting and bawling and encouraging Oh Dearism is actually helping anything. And I'd just like to say sorry to the escapist forum mods for having to put up with at least one topic like this a week. You truly go above and beyond for us.

Not all of tumblr is bad - and like most of the Escapist, not all of tumblr has the same exact view. Seriously - it's like someone hand picked the bad people from the site and said 'Here you go, here's the ENTIRE site' and the rest of the internet just went with it.

 

[Buckshaft]

People need to follow the example of Bill and Ted.

"Be Excellent to Each Other."

(Cue "EW CISHET WHITE MALES RARGRRGGRRGGGGGGHHHH)

Sure. Let's have diversity in games. But let's have it because it allows games to reach a greater number of people and have wide appeal, not because some white-guilt addled basement dweller can't sleep at night unless they feel like they prostrate themselves enough, or because a board of directors somewhere is afraid that the company's next project will earn the prestigious award of "Worst thing since Hitler/Saddam/British Occupation according to Tumblr".

On another note, fuck tumblr, and fuck anyone who thinks that shouting and bawling and encouraging Oh Dearism is actually helping anything. And I'd just like to say sorry to the escapist forum mods for having to put up with at least one topic like this a week. You truly go above and beyond for us.

Not all of tumblr is bad - and like most of the Escapist, not all of tumblr has the same exact view. Seriously - it's like someone hand picked the bad people from the site and said 'Here you go, here's the ENTIRE site' and the rest of the internet just went with it.

Good looking out, I actually keep a tumblr myself, and yes, it's true, that quite a lot of the site isn't the BRAGHAGHAGHRGHHH Moaning masses I just described, And that's the view presented to most people. The kicker? On the site, I honestly can't tell the difference between the cliche and the reality. Otherwise sane and rational people I know in real life jump on board the rage train of the day, no matter how stupid the cause.

But yes, Tumblr is generally a place where you can find cool stuff and people who aren't all crazy bastards... If you put your hand in a sack full of (politically correct) razorblades, like some sort of Saw trap.

 

[Erttheking]

The SJWs could stop trying to bully and repress people,

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to call foul. Bully and repress people? When a woman can't even criticize GTA V for not having good female characters and get rape threats over it, EVEN THOUGH SHE GAVE IT A NINE OUT OF TEN, I have to question whom is bullying whom here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABiPHyaKgTw

EDIT: What's more, I know we like to pick on COD fans, but I seriously doubt that people who buy games like that are responsible for stagnation in the industry. The industry needs to stop treating games as products if we're ever going to get some real innovation.

Never seen this review, I hated it, naturally, but the reaction was appalling, completely over the top, needlessly rude and aggressive. It was also sadly predictable.

The review was a classic case of SJW "fait accompli" story telling; endless claims about "misogyny", "problems with women" and the such all presented as fact and not as the opinion of someone desperately trying to underline their liberal credentials as they struggle to come to terms with their gender studies 101 syllabus. Many, many people, in fact the large majority don't care and/or don't believe this central claim that media should be forced, manipulated or has a duty to reflect some manufactured notion of total "equality". That's not how art works. Indeed, to suggest so is scary, Orwellian and wrong - no matter how wonderfully intentioned, it's still a minority trying to force their views on the majority at a fundamental level, the communication of ideas through art.

Even people you may think are bigots get to create bigot art! It's a really basic freedom to reflect the world as you see it. The only non-repressive "solution", or at least a more positive solution, is to create alternatives that reflect SJW views or that SJWs can enjoy and try to influence people this way. If done right, a game with a black, one legged lesbian with learning difficulties protagonist and her trans-gendered, Chilean lover who writes Haikus and struggles with body dis-morphia might sell very well (sorry that sounds like a piss take but I really think this would be the better approach and be surprisingly popular, I'd buy it, does that count? ).

These are two different issues though, SJWs don't get a +1000 flame resistant internet pass due the "justness" of their cause and anyone expressing any view on the internet is opening themselves up to dog's abuse. The comments on the review are vile but then so are they on a billion other vids and blogs.

Edit - I'd have thought that COD was the prime example of games as product and you ain't going to shift games from being products unless people stop handing over £1bn + every time some bugger releases the latest product! I do get your wider point though and it's strongly supported by some of the real innovation seen in "labour of love" inde games.

You hated it? How can you hate it? It gave Grand Theft Auto a nine out of ten. She complained about the lack of female characters, but it still shows that she thinks that the game is very good. Do you also hate Angry Joe's review of Metro Last Light? Which criticizes the gratious use of breasts, how the only female character with a name gets reduced from a tough soldier to a damsel in distress who has to be saved by the hero before screwing him and falling off the face of the Earth? And then gives the game a nine out of ten? Personally, as someone who loves Metro Last Light, I found that review to be very fair. It does a lot of things right, but Last Light's portrayal of women is nothing short of appalling.

At the beginning of this paragraph, you use a lot of cruel metaphors to say that the reviewer doesn't know what she's talking about. Yet you don't really explain why, you just sorta say she doesn't know what she's talking about. "Duty"? Please go back into that review and tell where the word "Duty" popped up. Because when a game manages to have so many characters that it needs eight different pages on TV Tropes

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/GrandTheftAutov

I think having a few female characters would've been easy. I really don't know why people think it's hard or limiting to have stories where the Male/Female ratio is higher than 10:1, or to have a female character or two that has agency and an impact on the plot. Orwellian? Criticizing the poor portrayal of female characters is Orwellian? And how is your criticizing of Call of Duty not Orwellian? You don't want people buying and playing a game you don't like! That sounds a Hell of a lot more Orwellian than a person criticizing one aspect of a game that they otherwise really liked!

Yeah, here's the thing though. Bigots have a right to create bigot art. And everyone has the right to tell them what a bigoted piece of trash that it is. Artistic freedom does NOT equal protection from criticism, and criticism does NOT equal bullying. Why can't people criticize games? Why can't we think critically about things we really care about? Like I said, I love Metro Last Light, I feel like it's the most atmospheric game I ever played. But the way it handled the character Anna was just horrible. Am I supposed to just keep my mouth shut about how horrible it was because SJWs (I HATE that term) should just be making their own game? No. No I won't. It was an awfully written character that was insulting to women and frankly, hurt the game's narrative. It would've been easy to make it so that Anna was just like every other Ranger, but they treated her less like a soldier because she was a woman. A love Metro Last Light, but loving something does not mean you ignore its flaws. It's in fact facing its flaws and realizing that you like it's strong points more than its flaws. To love a game without facing its flaws is blind love.

I didn't say that they did. I'm saying that there is something really wrong with the world when a woman can give one minor complaint about female characters in an otherwise glowing review and people throw a fit over it. And? How does that make it any better?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

For me, games and real life are different. Are women helpless? NO. Are they equal? YES. Does my opinion change just because i play a game where i save a women or watch a movie where the women is helpless. NO. Im a man with a mother and 3 sisters - is it wrong for me to want them safe regardless if they are capable? NO. Same as i know my sisters and mother want me safe and will stick up for me. People really need to be realistic instead of treating entertainment as reality. To different things. Or should we give animals more rights due to talking animals in movies?

Thing is when the social rights people start acting like PETA, then you have problems. Or do people think you have to have gays or trans gens in everything to be accepted in real life? Yeah, doesnt work that way. It takes time. Same way just making a character black wouldnt have forwarded black equality at all 50 years ago.

Also, when your talking about social justice. I play games where most of the characters are like me. Most males are muscle bound idiots, which is not me. I play the game, not the character. I can watch a movie about slavery or a documentary about the jews in WW2 concentration camps without needing to be black or jewish to understand. People just confuse changing stuff in games to changing stuff in real life.

All these idiots (like PETA) should just concentrate on real life injustice not a bunch of video games. Sorry, but your attentions are wasted on stuff that doesnt matter (entertainment that is, the real life issues about injustice you should deal with as thats where the real change will happen).

 

[psijac]

People with agendas don't care about you. All they want is for their agenda to be pushed forward. No matter the cost to your work or fun. Think about every alphabet organization out there NSA, OSHA, NOW, PETA, MDA has any of those angry armies made a game MORE fun for you? Or made work easier for you?

 

[ultratog1028]

Considering most SJW's are neurotic, cry-babies who spend large portions of their lives screaming
at max volume at non-issues,

So they have more in common with Gamers then we thought

 

[NoeL]

No, but there are a lot of progressive activists out there who are a lot less polite than you.

In other words, you're cherry picking. It's not conducive to conversation if you just point at the idiots and say "These people can't be reasoned with!" - especially when you're in the middle of a reasonable conversation with one.

To be blunt, people outside of gaming (and few people truly are these days) don't matter

And that's the fundamental divide between our positions. Progressives are interested in growing the industry, getting as many people as possible interested in gaming, which in turn will produce an interesting and diverse landscape in the future - the same way movies have gone. We're interested to see what fresh and new experiences people unfamiliar with gaming conventions can bring to the table. Some indies are doing this already, but most just want to recreate games from their childhood.

Conservatives want to keep gaming to themselves, have it be "their thing" that caters only to them, churning out the same safe, familiar experiences ad infinitum. They're not interested in artsy, experimental games and don't want any focus taken away from delivering the things they are interested in. To me it just seems selfish to want to hog the medium to yourself.

and if they're not buying games, why should companies cater to their tastes?

So that they do buy games. It's funny how we see the situation from two opposite sides: you say publishers should only cater to the existing market, I say the existing market is only there because they're the only ones being catered to. Of course I don't believe that if EA released Knitting Simulator 3000 the elderly woman market would explode overnight, as that would be ridiculous, but if you start small and target people on the fringes of gaming (like people that play games on smartphones) you can steadily grow that audience outwards.

(off topic, I'm pretty sickened by how the industry has taken advantage of the ignorance of non-gamers in the emerging smartphone market, but eventually as people get more familiar with gaming they'll get fed up with the audacity of it all and a more reasonable price ceiling for mobile games will naturally emerge. So overall I think it's a good thing, but it's the ugly wild west at the moment)

Sure, there's an argument to be made for people who are nonplussed by the games currently available but who potentially could be enticed by different games - but I'd consider them already within the broader sphere of gaming. But overall, I'd like games companies to cater to gamers, not non-gamers; that just seems like common sense.

See above, I guess.

Sorry, but I still consider most of this reasoning incorrect. Within popular media there's a huge amount of cross-cultural appeal. I have Indian friends who listen to RnB, I know black people who are huge Anime fans. There are whole communities of white kids who love Japanese/Korean culture and media. Far from the cultural divide being some impassable barrier, it's something that people cross every day, and in some cases actually seek out in part because of the appeal of exoticism or cultural differences.

Again, I'm not sure you're really getting your head around what I'm saying. I'm not saying cross-cultural appeal doesn't exist, I'm not saying you need to be part of the target demographic to enjoy the media, I'm saying that target demographics do exist and that the main consumers of a certain type of media are the ones that fit that target demographic. I don't deny you have Indian friends that listen to RnB, but would you say they outnumber the blacks that listen to RnB? And would you say the Indians that listen to RnB outnumber the Indians that listen to music targeted towards Indians?

I remember about a decade or so ago Australian hip-hop started getting quite popular here (in Australia). Prior, American hip-hop was pretty niche compared to the more mainstream pub rock, but when hip-hop featuring Australian themes and accents started getting air time it pretty quickly found mainstream appeal and quite a few Aussie hip-hop posses sprung up in the wake of its popularity. That's just an example of an existing product finding a whole new market by appropriating things that interest the "out group". No one cared about American hip-hop because there was nothing relatable for them, but give it an Australian flavour and you've suddenly created a new, substantial market.

I'd also challenge the idea that white males make games starring white males that you need to be a white male gamer to fully enjoy. I can enjoy playing Sonic The Hedgehog despite being neither a hedgehog nor a Japanese programmer. I can enjoy Tetris despite not being Russian. My middle-aged mother has played Age of Empires (1, vanilla) daily for the past 10 years despite it being a game about warfare, full of men, and presumably developed by a male-majority team.

I didn't even put forward that idea in the first place, so I don't know why you'd challenge it.

None of this is an argument against diversity, and as I said before I think diversity and variety are desirable if just for interest and appeal. But I flat-out disagree with the idea that we NEED a mirroring type of representation to enjoy games, let alone representation of our own demographic in development. (And hell, foreign dev teams tend to make games that are indistinguishable from the mainstream anyway - Minecraft doesn't have a notably Swedish aesthetic to it, GTA V isn't full of Scottish accents, etc).

See my above example with Aussie hip-hop. There was a big shift from people that didn't like hip-hop to people that did like hip-hop, and the catalyst for that shift was the insertion of something culturally relevant to that market. In other words, Australia was represented in the hip-hop scene, and suddenly more Australians became interested in hip-hop. Did they "NEED" it? No - there were smaller number of people that already listened to hip-hop coming out of the US. Did it nevertheless massively increase the number of hip-hop consumers? Absolutely.

1 - I don't think it's possible to puff out our chests, put our hands on our hips, and tell a billion-dollar worldwide industry to change on a dime. This whole metaphor of "battling" and "winning the war" is a red herring. It's about placing pebbles in the stream now and seeing the course of the water change miles downstream. Or you can try standing under a waterfall and shouting "I've decided water should go up from now on, wurgleblurgle glubglub blubble", that's fine too. Just don't take it personally when you get soaking wet and the water obstinately carries on falling downwards.

A bit of a massive failure of analogy there. Water is a non-sentient liquid that's always going to follow the path of least resistance and obey gravity. The AAA gaming industry is full of sentient people that follow market trends, and if something is unpopular in the market they're not going to just keep plodding along into irrelevance. They're going to do what they have to to remain profitable. Hell, just look at all the backtracking Microsoft did with the Xbox One after nothing but people puffing out their chests, putting their hands on their hips and telling the billion-dollar company to change on a dime (mostly with their wallets. I cant remember if the changes started coming before or after the PS4 started smashing them in pre-orders, but I think it was after).

2 - We could make exactly the same argument for keeping things the way they are - if current gamers don't mind the tropes, and the people who do object buy the games anyway, it's not hurting sales... not that I think that's a good thing, I'm just pointing out that you can't blame the market for taking the path of least resistance.

Yeah, but you have to assume the people that find modern gaming objectionable are buying the product anyway, and that's just not the case (why would they?). So no, you can't really make the same argument. Not a compelling one at least. In fact, no, you can't even make that argument at all.

Let's say a game sells 1 million copies, 100,000 of those sales are from people that find the game objectionable but bought it anyway, and there are 100,000 other people that were interested but found the game too objectionable to warrant a purchase.

If they keep the game as is, they sell 1 million. If they make a change to remove the objectionable bit, they sell 1.1 million instead. Win win. For that not to be the case there would have to be 100,000+ people that found the removal of that objectionable content objectionable enough to lose their sale, and in cases where publishers are only adding freedom (for example, a choice of gender for your avatar) I just don't see that happening.

Really? Sarkeesian started her kickstarter a little over two years ago (I don't want to derail the discussion, and of course it's not all about her, but she marks the point where the zeitgeist changed). What have the results been of that? The discourse has become more politically charged, and possibly a few devs have avoided adding features that they thought would be crucified by the increasingly shouty and left-wing gaming press - but where's the blossoming creativity, the innovation, the wonderful spectrum of new directions and new possibilities that appeal to an ever-broadening community of gamers? It hasn't happened. In fact, there's been no inkling of all of this negative and accusatory fist-shaking having had any positive or tangible effect at all. Please set me straight if I'm incorrect in thinking that.

Because it's only been two years. The games coming out now would have started development before this shift in culture even began, and besides that the progressive voice still hasn't gotten loud enough to make the big wigs pay any serious attention (and probably won't until they inevitably get burned by it). Just give it time.

 

[Erttheking]

Considering most SJW's are neurotic, cry-babies who spend large portions of their lives screaming
at max volume at non-issues, I DON'T want to get along with them. I don't want them to get along with anyone else. I want them, their pathetic parody of humanitarism, their crap arguments, all of it, to fail.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SV2t29C9Hc4/Udip0f3dFUI/AAAAAAAAAS4/6Kjr827vRPw/s1600/Strawman+playbackups+com.jpg

I don't find your arguments to be particularly accurate, nor compelling. In reality they have no basis in fact and seem to be pure bias given the form of statements.

 

[Bombiz]

I'm honestly tired of this whole "war". I've seen both sides of it and I can honestly say both have been acting immature and crazy.
I'm just going to wait and see which side wins.

 

[AlexWinter]

You can be a gamer and an SJW.

OT: I don't think gamers and SJWs can get along if gamers don't want to be SJWs because SJWs hate people that don't want to be SJWs.

Why wouldn't you hate someone that doesn't want things to change for the better?

 

[FriendlyFyre]

You ready for this? I just finished reading a book on the subject of oppression and privilege, and I think I can give this thread a pretty definite answer.

In essence, like most art forms, in recent years video games have begun maturing, and this means that we can now critique them as more then just a kid's diversion. And now that people are doing so, we're facing a lot of uncomfortable truths.

Because the gaming market is over-saturated with white, heterosexual protagonists who conform to a pretty specific form of masculinity, we've come to think of this as the norm, with every other sexuality, race, or gender as being a diversion. Problem is that for gamers who don't fit this profile, this leaves them feeling left out of the narrative, or even worse, finds their culture/sexuality used mockingly (gay or ethnic stereotypes) or with unfortunate implications (Evil bisexual characters, black characters portrayed as "exotic")

What we're encountering here, what we usually call "People being too sensitive/SJWs being assholes" are issues being raised that many of us have never had to think about before, issues that we have been privileged not to thanks to our class/gender/race/sexual orientation.

According to the book I read, no talk of treating people with equality and dignity can be established until we learn to see how our privilege interacts with others, because while one person may feel they are being treated fairly, another may not, and point out that they only think it's "fair" because they haven't had to deal with certain things (Example, being followed around a store due to their race, and no, this doesn't mean the person is just a racist, because it's too widely documented a phenomenon)

Anyway, the bigger point I'm trying to make is that once you begin to see this inequality, as most so-called SJWs do, they opt to bring attention to it. It might not be nice, and often they are aware that what they say will not be received well, but they do it because for too long these issues have been either ignored, or labeled as "minority problems. Letting these little things slide may not SEEM like a big deal ("Oh my god, why are you so sensitive to EVERYTHING?) but what they represent is called a "Path of least resistance," or avoiding thinking about the problem so we don't have to do anything about it.

What many gamers see as personal attacks, or reverse racism, or just plain self righteousness, is not seen as such in their eyes, but merely attempts to get others to acknowledge the problems in a way that will get us thinking about the issue as more then just "something that happens to other people." While many claim there are better, more "effective" ways of doing this, the reality is many people have been dealing with these things for so long that to ask they to be "nice" about it is kind of belittling.

But the ULTIMATE INSIGHT is that SJWs are NOT GOING TO STOP. Because privilege is neither something that goes away, nor something we can just ignore under the guise of being "Good people,"and games and gamers are equally affected by it. Us gamers may not like it, we may want to rescue the princess, save the villagers, or play around in our Japanese themed wonderland, but those who are aware of male privilege, "The white savior trope," and cultural appropriation will draw attention to these because they see them as problems that we avoid discussing, and which leads to feelings frustration for many.

So, the answer to how gamers and SJWs can get along has two parts, though they boil down to the same thing; awareness and willingness to listen rather then be offended (Because we recognize that we probably know relatively little thanks to our privilege). Gamers need to acknowledge their privilege in various areas and stop trying to tell others that they can't be offended by things, as well as recognizing that some of these things, though small, may be very important when it comes to people feeling included, or their culture respected. And second, gamers, really everyone, would do well to measure how important it is for these conversations, which often deal with subjects that many of us likely don't have much experience in, are "friendly" when so many of the people bringing up the issues have had to constantly deal with their experience being downplayed ("Creepy guys trying to talk to you on the bus? At least you're not living under Sharia law!")

As for how what the SJWs can do to get along, I'd say that acknowledging creative freedom being just as important as sensitivity to viewers would make them less likely to look like an enemy to games. But because so much of this revolves around privilege, cis, hetero, male gamers may have to do more thinking and independent research then they think they need to, as well as acknowledging that "It's just a game, who cares what's in it as long as it plays well" is a surefire way to show they aren't paying attention to their privilege.






tl;dr Gamers need to stop dismissing these issues and do some independent research on them, and stop attacking SJWs just because they aren't necessarily "polite," even when it doesn't seem fair. Because ignoring the problem hasn't been healthy for lots of gamers who haven't been represented well in games.