Topsider said:
Loonyyy said:
Sounds like he's referring to the whole "Women in combat is unrealistic" thing, and then specifying what looks like some military training qualification. Which is a whole other bag of worms, but I wouldn't exactly agree with it for a number of reasons.
Women in combat is quite realistic.
I didn't dispute that. I disputed the comment about how unrealistic it is for women to be there. I didn't bring realism into it. Neither did errtheking in the post you responded to. You brought this in. errtheking asked for
consistency. You're tilting at opponents made from straw.
And yes, often videogames present us with members of the special forces, and if we're going for full verismilitude, then sure, whatever, no chicks. Of course, videogames also present us with members of the Marines on a regular basis, or average joe types, or entirely fictional units. And somehow, I find a woman in a team who is able to keep up with people she would be unlikely to keep up with, less distracting than a woman in a thong.
Apparently because women are unlikely to be serving members of the special forces, we might as well have them parading around in a thong if they're there.
Women doing snake eater stuff is quite unrealistic. Once we breach the unrealism event horizon, it's only a matter of degrees.
Anyone of either gender doing any MGS stuff is quite unrealistic.
Hell, just try crouchwalking like a stealth character, it's a killer.
I mean, shit; if we're going to shriek about a sexy outfit being unrealistic in a warzone, we might as well shriek about the Super Hornet in Battlefield 3 carrying twenty Sidewinders.
This is called a false equivalence. You've done it over and over. Things can be a matter of scale, and may matter more or less to different people. And telling me what I should or should not care about is not going to work, and if all we do is use these comparisons to justify objectifying women, then it's sexist as shit. If you don't care about it, fine, that's fair. I'd rather you at least think it through before you made up your mind, but if you don't want to think about it, that's fine too. You should probably avoid decieving others into thinking you're interested in thinking or talking about it though in derailing posts.
Additionally, it completely misunderstands why these things are done. Jets in Battlefield having unlimited missiles is unrealistic, but it's done to simplify things in the interest of pursuing a certain sort of interaction and fun. Women in sexy outfits is also done to pursue a certain interaction and fun, but that fun is tittilation of straight male players who don't mind being pandered to, at least in this game. There's a whole bunch of people who aren't interested in it, or are actively turned off by it, who're just expressing their opinion on the game. And it's not as if the devs aren't aware that some people like it, they've designed it to pander to that mindset, it's no wonder that people who don't like it want to say something when they feel they aren't being catered to.
And if they're thinking about it, and honest, most people who enjoy this stuff understand the concept. I'm pretty sure that OP does.
The "realism" argument is decried, rightfully, everywhere except in debates about female outerwear.
Well, it could be, if you're willing to entirely ignore the nuance and arguments that actual people make. People more often ask for consistency (Like err did, and claiming victory over the realism argument is entirely disconnected from anything err said), that a game which requires men in body armour requires women in armour as well, and that otherwise the tone is affected, and often they're distracted. And it's up to devs whether they even care. They can do whatever they like, they can listen, they can not, they can change, they can stay the same, because it's just another bit of criticism.
I didn't make the realism claim, in fact, I even derided it myself a little. Because I don't think it's entirely honest, or at least correct. But that'd be a further derail. I'm much more sympathetic to the consistency angle.
If people genuinely wanted realism, Arma'd sell a lot better than it does.
A game which recently recieved a third installment, who's second installment has a dedicated continuing fanbase? The platform which spawned DayZ? Yeah, no-one want's that. That's why I, and no-one else either, definitely do not have ARMA II, and a bunch of expansions. Definitely no Operation Flashpoint (And Red River definitely didn't suck, they made it less realistic, totally saved the series that one.). Not a good example for your point. Because ARMA makes a profit targetting a specific consumer, and in the end, most of the criticism of these elements comes down to letting people know that a specific demographic exists.
But you only have to ask around these forums for a bit, and you'd see that there's a whole bunch of people who find the difference in dress of men and women in certain games either unrealistic, patronising, pandering, inconsistent, or sexist, for various reasons. People do want these things, and there's definitely a market for it. Maybe not the biggest market. Maybe not the same market. That doesn't matter one jot. And that doesn't mean that people aren't buying games with these elements even if they disagree, it's more often that they're criticising something, often something that they've played, because they feel it is something that makes the game less good, and they would like to express a desire for an alternative.
