I need help understanding UPDATED

[EyeReaper]

Well, to put it simply, yes, they have the right to make their game however they want, you know, corporate mandates and everything aside. Inversely, Buyers of said product have the right to ***** about dumb characters.

Sure, some cases seem more silly than others (see the "Smash Samus wearing high heels incident" and pretty much every criticism about Bayonetta) but that doesn't mean people can't complain about them. On the "Portrayal of women make gamers into harassing sex offenders" front... no. That's regressing back to the Jack Thompson era of Games totally make people violent and killers.

Otherwise, the opposite should be true as well. If male gamers get brainwashed into thinking women are sex objects because of Quiet, Lady gamers should start assuming male gamers are steroid infused jock military super mutants with a slight bit of stubble, right?

 

[Tsun Tzu]

No.

No.

No.

No. No. No. No. Nononononononoononono.

Don't start. Don't get involved. Don't even worry about it.

Don't get dragged into this endless whirlpool of bullshit perpetrated by the exact same folks in every single thread posted here. Don't. Run. Go play something and get some measure of enjoyment out of your life. Do literally anything else.

Anything.

But...if you insist.

The long and the short of it is this:

1. Some people don't like things and their response to that dislike is to avoid said things.

2. Some people don't like things and their response is to attack it in an attempt to force it to change.

What we're seeing here is a basic conflict between the former and the latter individuals. Also, we've got twitter mobs and social media now, so vocal minorities can 'bully' and shame creators to their heart's content. It creates a hostile environment for pretty much everybody, both the 1s and the 2s, and therefore leads to creators either not wishing to deal with the toxicity or seeking to avoid the nonsense all-together.

Except for the Japanese. They're still awesome.

"Tits are life, ass is hometown." - Kenichiro Takaki

 

[I can't enter my old name]

Why Quiet?

Well, some people don't the way she dresses duh.

Okay but seriously, why Quiet? Watch her crawl around in the rain almost naked. How many times have you seen a woman crawling in the rain naked. When was the last time your friend shoved her butt in your face. Combined with the fact that she's hot and we've made improvements in rendering realistic human characters, some people get hot and bothered. It's like watching that Oculus Rift demo of a hot schoolgirl. Something feels wrong, it's like something you're not supposed to be doing. It's like walking in naked on someone you like, and you have sexual instincts but you are embarrassed. Its like seeing rule 34 of some character you respect, feeling conflicted inside.

Like a lot of fan service, it's funny, quirky, and sometimes makes us feel uncomfortable. A lot of people who don't like fan service don't want to be judged as a pervert. So, they go to great lengths to avoid looking like such. I imagine that most of the people complaining when watching those scenes were like "whoah this is ... phew. Glad no one is watching".

Of course no one wants to be a prude, so they find more reasonable arguments to latch on to like "breathing through her skin how ridiculous, where's my internal consistency" or "Kojima this character is lazy and objectifies women". These may be valid arguments but they are not the initial cause of attention. These arguments are here to rationalize why they feel like they dislike Quiet in a more persuasive form. This is why people don't complain about the other inconsistencies because they are not as noticeable.

 

[9tailedflame]

It's dumb. It's coming from people who want realism from a series whose most iconic moment is a professional spy running around under a box to avoid detection.

Don't even bother with those people. They're social imperialists, they feel that they need to involve themselves in everything and make sure that nothing exists that offends them, rather than avoiding things that offend them. It's just the jerk puritanicals ruining things for everyone else, which history has seen time and time again, and, unfortunately, this probably won't be the last history hears from them either.

They can't be reasoned with, so don't bother trying. Just enjoy what you enjoy, and try to laugh at the whole ridiculous mess of a situation instead of getting seriously involved.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

They're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone.

Not to interrupt your proselytizing, but this is a curious statement. Do you believe it applies as a general hand-wave to all criticism?

Let me think of a better way to frame this...

Do you believe all media criticism to be irrelevant, on the grounds of "they're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone"? Do you personally withhold from ever criticizing media?

 

[Treeberry]

I think the better question is 'Why don't you understand?

There are some nutjobs for and against who take things too far and sour it all.

The 'breathing through her skin' thing was worked poorly into the overall story/mythos as far as I know (I'm not really a fan of the series - I've played the first Solid game, I'm just going by what I've heard and seen) and then you have the dodgy camera thing. From what I remember of the pre-release stuff, you have a big-busted almost naked gun-wielding mute woman with a BS-sounding reasoning as to why alongside more typical soldier types. You have to take that into consideration too, even if the series doesn't have the same tone all the way through. Out of context or at first glance there are unfortunate implications.

The more sensible people aren't saying that we can't have DoA butt battles (although I do wish they'd include the male characters, I'm sure Gen Fu would totally be up for it even if Hayabusa's not) or stuff like Criminal Girls, they're saying 'Why can't have we fanservice games that include or are for both sexes and likewise in more serious games, why are we reverting to chainmail bikinis?' People want variety.

Another issue is that we've seen one idiot company claim that female characters are too hard to animate amongst other things.

Regarding "they're only fictional characters". Well, Uncle Tom and Tonto are fictional but people rightly find them degrading depictions. The other thing is if we're talking about costume choices both sides can be argued. "The character is fictional so they have fewer clothes/bikini armour", "The character is fictional, it's not going to hurt to throw in some authentic-seeming combat gear with a stylish twist"

cheapened form of censorship

Hehe. Sorry, that just reminded me of those people who claimed they would never buy Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water because - oh noes - no bikini/lingerie costumes. Go...buy...an ero-novel? I would so wear the character's default costumes as everyday clothing. They are so pretty.

EDIT: I do find the censorship of the costumes as silly as the costumes themselves but refusing to buy a game you're otherwise interested in purely because of that is pathetic. Especially if that game is part of a niche series within a niche genre.

Anyway, it's all part of the medium growing up. Did erotic novels suddenly die off? Do we no longer have medieval-esque setting-ed quest fantasies just because dark fantasy is so cool and edgy now?

EDIT: Also, I just to add that the kind of people who spend a lot of time arguing about this kind of stuff like a warband of constipated chimps about to tear each other's arms off are more than likely spending too much on internet echo chambers and not enough on having fun with games and other gamers.

*Troops

A gathering of constipated chimps about to tear each other's arms off is called a Troop.

Chimps live in groups called troops, of some 30 to 80 individuals. These large groups are made up of smaller, very flexible groups of just a few animals, perhaps all females, all males or a mixed group.

I love this post and the image accompanying it. You, sir or m'am', made my day.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

EDIT: Also, I just to add that the kind of people who spend a lot of time arguing about this kind of stuff like a warband of constipated chimps about to tear each other's arms off are more than likely spending too much on internet echo chambers and not enough on having fun with games and other gamers.

*Troops

A gathering of constipated chimps about to tear each other's arms off is called a Troop.

Chimps live in groups called troops, of some 30 to 80 individuals. These large groups are made up of smaller, very flexible groups of just a few animals, perhaps all females, all males or a mixed group.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's dumb. It's coming from people who want realism from a series whose most iconic moment is a professional spy running around under a box to avoid detection.

Don't even bother with those people. They're social imperialists, they feel that they need to involve themselves in everything and make sure that nothing exists that offends them, rather than avoiding things that offend them. It's just the jerk puritanicals ruining things for everyone else, which history has seen time and time again, and, unfortunately, this probably won't be the last history hears from them either.

They can't be reasoned with, so don't bother trying. Just enjoy what you enjoy, and try to laugh at the whole ridiculous mess of a situation instead of getting seriously involved.

Yeah, it's kinda hard to avoid it when it's in a game that, for the most part, you're fine with. You know, criticizing one aspect of it that you dislike?

Odd how criticizing sexualization in media automatically makes one an imperialist puritan, but somehow not when you critisize acting or writing. It seems we now live in a time where sex in media is immune from critique, lest you be some prudish "feminazi". 'What, you don't think that sex scene was done well?! Fuck you and your social justice!'

 

[Redryhno]

They're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone.

Not to interrupt your proselytizing, but this is a curious statement. Do you believe it applies as a general hand-wave to all criticism?

Let me think of a better way to frame this...

Do you believe all media criticism to be irrelevant, on the grounds of "they're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone"? Do you personally withhold from ever criticizing media?

I think the point being made is that you're free to criticize, provided you don't start from "ChangeThisShitOrElseVille" or "ImaCutThisFootageToFullyAgreeWithMe Township". Nobody likes interviews where questions like "have you stopped hitting your spouse yet?" pop up when the person in question had a public altercation with said spouse where both exchanged...let's call them blows. Except the recall image only shows one side of the story and ignores that both parties were in the wrong.

And it's largely the same with alot of criticism concerning this topic. It never really starts with something sorta innocent like "that could've been done better". It's nearly always "THIS IS DISGUSTING, DO YOU KNOW THE YEAR IS xxxx AND THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE". And when the latter is told to take it a bit easy and laugh because finding it infuriating instead of a silly thing that exists does more harm to them personally and simply makes it less likely to have anything that they REALLY want in the future with the attitude they've got, it just escalates too much of the time.

 

[I can't enter my old name]

They're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone.

Not to interrupt your proselytizing, but this is a curious statement. Do you believe it applies as a general hand-wave to all criticism?

Let me think of a better way to frame this...

Do you believe all media criticism to be irrelevant, on the grounds of "they're not obliged to make it appeal to everyone"? Do you personally withhold from ever criticizing media?

To what extent to you mean by "irrelevant". Isn't art criticism just "this made me feel this way and why?"

Other than helping a consumer make a purchase, is there some importance to criticizing a piece of fiction, especially the kind being discussed here? What else does it tell besides the likely hood of enjoyment out of a product?

Don't hold criticism as if it were arrived at empirical observation. Such bold claims cause people to think public opinion as fact, like "Mary Sues? Nono that's bad writing."

People like their shit just as you like other things. If a writer wants to write fan-fiction that hardly anyone will enjoy then by all means go ahead. However, some writers write to make money, and a story that makes people feel satisfied is what sells. If it conflicts with your opinions, the author is not required to change it to suit you.

Also, do you actually think MGS can be written to appeal to everyone? Should Kojima and his writers jump through hoops to try to appeal to an audience they are not used to writing to?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I think the point being made is that you're free to criticize, provided you don't start from "ChangeThisShitOrElseVille" or "ImaCutThisFootageToFullyAgreeWithMe Township". Nobody likes interviews where questions like "have you stopped hitting your spouse yet?" pop up when the person in question had a public altercation with said spouse where both exchanged...let's call them blows. Except the recall image only shows one side of the story and ignores that both parties were in the wrong.

And it's largely the same with alot of criticism concerning this topic. It never really starts with something sorta innocent like "that could've been done better". It's nearly always "THIS IS DISGUSTING, DO YOU KNOW THE YEAR IS xxxx AND THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE". And when the latter is told to take it a bit easy and laugh because finding it infuriating instead of a silly thing that exists does more harm to them personally and simply makes it less likely to have anything that they REALLY want in the future with the attitude they've got, it just escalates too much of the time.

Alright...questions of doctored/misleading footage aside (which isn't really "media criticism"), let me ask you this:

Who decides what constitutes "acceptable criticism"? What metric is employed? Do you feel comfortable setting the bar and saying "This criticism is allowable, this criticism is not (and should be silenced/shouted down)?". I certainly don't. We do seem to have a handful of very loud voices who do, and I'm curious where they feel that authority stems from.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Other than helping a consumer make a purchase, is there some importance to criticizing a piece of fiction, especially the kind being discussed here? What else does it tell besides the likely hood of enjoyment out of a product?

There is no inherent, objective value in a piece of criticism,no. It's an entirely subjective assessment, made by the person consuming it.

People like their shit just as you like other things. If a writer wants to write fan-fiction that hardly anyone will enjoy then by all means go ahead. However, some writers write to make money, and a story that makes people feel satisfied is what sells. If it conflicts with your opinions, the author is not required to change it to suit you.

No one is ever "required" to change something to suit anyone. There's some kind of bizarre disconnect here, where people are imagining a world of binary realities...either artists must never change, or must always change, in reaction to criticism. Why not let the artist decide?

Also, do you actually think MGS can be written to appeal to everyone?

Did I say that I did?

 

[9tailedflame]

It's dumb. It's coming from people who want realism from a series whose most iconic moment is a professional spy running around under a box to avoid detection.

Don't even bother with those people. They're social imperialists, they feel that they need to involve themselves in everything and make sure that nothing exists that offends them, rather than avoiding things that offend them. It's just the jerk puritanicals ruining things for everyone else, which history has seen time and time again, and, unfortunately, this probably won't be the last history hears from them either.

They can't be reasoned with, so don't bother trying. Just enjoy what you enjoy, and try to laugh at the whole ridiculous mess of a situation instead of getting seriously involved.

Yeah, it's kinda hard to avoid it when it's in a game that, for the most part, you're fine with. You know, criticizing one aspect of it that you dislike?

Odd how criticizing sexualization in media automatically makes one an imperialist puritan, but somehow not when you critisize acting or writing. It seems we now live in a time where sex in media is immune from critique, lest you be some prudish "feminazi". 'What, you don't think that sex scene was done well?! Fuck you and your social justice!'

When you're criticizing the acting or the writing, it's because you want them to be better, not because you want them to go away. If someone were to present an argument on how a character could be improved in a sex sense, than i'd be fine with that, but up until now, it's been the same puritanical argument about how making women attractive or sexualized somehow makes them not people. If you have an argument about how this character could be equally sexual, but done better, then please, i'm all ears.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The big difference is if you can argue and convince people that the problem you see is a valid one and not merely a subjective dislike.

This is an entertainment medium. We're not discussing the efficacy of medicines or whether or not a wheel turns. Everything we have to say about these products beyond "do they work when we turn them on" is subjective.

Can the criticism be justified well in the context of the art, it's tone, it's themes and it's internal logic without using any of the following phrases or variations on them:

Certainly you can make the argument that some criticisms are more cogent or convincing to a large audience than others. Yet it seems you're attempting to establish a kind of "commandments for media criticism" that will silence criticism you feel doesn't meet a set of personal standards. As discussed, this is an entertainment medium, and people's enjoyments of entertainment products is entirely subjective. I find it intensely curious when someone is invested in telling someone else that their subjective reaction to an experience is wrong.

It also strikes me as fundamentally anti-consumer, suggesting that feedback to creators be gate-kept and only "approved" criticisms allowed through. What, exactly, is being protected? Are you attempting to "safe space" media creators? What's the goal?

 

[Redryhno]

I think the point being made is that you're free to criticize, provided you don't start from "ChangeThisShitOrElseVille" or "ImaCutThisFootageToFullyAgreeWithMe Township". Nobody likes interviews where questions like "have you stopped hitting your spouse yet?" pop up when the person in question had a public altercation with said spouse where both exchanged...let's call them blows. Except the recall image only shows one side of the story and ignores that both parties were in the wrong.

And it's largely the same with alot of criticism concerning this topic. It never really starts with something sorta innocent like "that could've been done better". It's nearly always "THIS IS DISGUSTING, DO YOU KNOW THE YEAR IS xxxx AND THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE". And when the latter is told to take it a bit easy and laugh because finding it infuriating instead of a silly thing that exists does more harm to them personally and simply makes it less likely to have anything that they REALLY want in the future with the attitude they've got, it just escalates too much of the time.

Alright...questions of doctored/misleading footage aside (which isn't really "media criticism"), let me ask you this:

Who decides what constitutes "acceptable criticism"? What metric is employed? Do you feel comfortable setting the bar and saying "This criticism is allowable, this criticism is not (and should be silenced/shouted down)?". I certainly don't. We do seem to have a handful of very loud voices who do, and I'm curious where they feel that authority stems from.

I mean, to a point, yes. But the bar's honestly pretty low. If you're going to criticize, at least use things that actually happen in the game(and aren't of the "the player CAN do it if they so desire" variety) and try not to lie by omission. Also bonus points to entry if you don't use an excess of buzzwords or give alternatives that don't go into destroying points of the game they exist in.

Basically, just tell the truth and try to find the redeeming qualities. Pretty low bar to enter into the wonderous land of media criticism isn't it?

I think Quiet could've been done better, but she's in a franchise where people got knocky in the knees because Raiden exists and a substantial portion of a game is dedicated to him running around with his junk in his hands as both a joke and played straight. As well as a world where sexy soldiers, while not a norm, are around enough of the time to not raise eyebrows and are often the most dangerous in the story they take part in.

Also, the media tampering thing was simply an example of people starting from the answers they want instead of the questions they want answered. Nobody likes that right>

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I mean, to a point, yes. But the bar's honestly pretty low. If you're going to criticize, at least use things that actually happen in the game(and aren't of the "the player CAN do it if they so desire" variety) and try not to lie by omission. Also bonus points to entry if you don't use an excess of buzzwords or give alternatives that don't go into destroying points of the game they exist in.

Basically, just tell the truth and try to find the redeeming qualities. Pretty low bar to enter into the wonderous land of media criticism isn't it?

It's unclear if you think I'm referring to 'professional' criticism, in which case you're well served to appeal to as wide an audience as possible if you want to eat. In which case you should either deliver generic, bias-confirming praise, or you should say something incredibly controversial to drive page clicks. But I digress...

No, I'm just talking about criticizing media. Like, if I said "A River Runs Through It is boring", I am criticizing media. Presumably no one would take issue with me delivering said criticism, save possibly Robert Redford. However, if I said "Quiet is stupid, and the explanations for her design make her seem even stupider", then I'm transgressing, and I need to shut up, or Kojima will get a sadness blister, or something.

And believe me, I don't give a shit...I've never played MGS...any of them...and it is my understanding that the setting and content is wildly ridiculous, so one more stupid element is just a fart in a windstorm. I don't CARE. But she's really stupid. And it's TOTALLY OK for me to say that. Just as it's totally ok for Johnny Wanksalot to defend her jiggling tits with his dying breath. Presumably we'd all be able to have civil discussions about it in which we weighed the relative merits of Quiet's tits against the sanctity of Metal Gear Solid's clownshow universe, but we don't get to do that anymore because everyone is too busy poisoning wells and issuing jeremiads to talk about games. On the gaming forum.

Also, the media tampering thing was simply an example of people starting from the answers they want instead of the questions they want answered.

Are you suggesting people are expressing confirmation biases?!

Here?!

Redryhno! I am surprised at you sir!

 

[Casual Shinji]

When you're criticizing the acting or the writing, it's because you want them to be better, not because you want them to go away. If someone were to present an argument on how a character could be improved in a sex sense, than i'd be fine with that, but up until now, it's been the same puritanical argument about how making women attractive or sexualized somehow makes them not people. If you have an argument about how this character could be equally sexual, but done better, then please, i'm all ears.

Well, that's basically all everyone's been saying. People don't complain about Quiet for being sexual, but for being handled so fucking poorly.

The Witcher 3 didn't get this amount, or any, critique over its sexualized female characters, and that's because the general opinion is that they were handled well. Them being sexy didn't overtake their entire character, as opposed to Quiet who only wasn't shaking her tits and ass in your face when she was just being a buddy in the field. And again, whose personality (what little of it there is) shows zero interest in being sexy or flaunting herself. She's this cold, introverted, slightly troubled assassin who doesn't care much for interacting with others, but then starts doing erotic stretches and giving inviting glances toward the player just cuz.

I'll point again to EVA from MGS3, who was a very sexualized character and who was always busy trying to seduce Snake. She was fine, because that was part of her spy persona.

The extreme fanservice-y nature of Quiet utterly clashes with her purpose in the story. That's what people are complaining about.

 

[Redryhno]

I mean, to a point, yes. But the bar's honestly pretty low. If you're going to criticize, at least use things that actually happen in the game(and aren't of the "the player CAN do it if they so desire" variety) and try not to lie by omission. Also bonus points to entry if you don't use an excess of buzzwords or give alternatives that don't go into destroying points of the game they exist in.

Basically, just tell the truth and try to find the redeeming qualities. Pretty low bar to enter into the wonderous land of media criticism isn't it?

It's unclear if you think I'm referring to 'professional' criticism, in which case you're well served to appeal to as wide an audience as possible if you want to eat. In which case you should either deliver generic, bias-confirming praise, or you should say something incredibly controversial to drive page clicks. But I digress...

No, I'm just talking about criticizing media. Like, if I said "A River Runs Through It is boring", I am criticizing media. Presumably no one would take issue with me delivering said criticism, save possibly Robert Redford. However, if I said "Quiet is stupid, and the explanations for her design make her seem even stupider", then I'm transgressing, and I need to shut up, or Kojima will get a sadness blister, or something.

And believe me, I don't give a shit...I've never played MGS...any of them...and it is my understanding that the setting and content is wildly ridiculous, so one more stupid element is just a fart in a windstorm. I don't CARE. But she's really stupid. And it's TOTALLY OK for me to say that. Just as it's totally ok for Johnny Wanksalot to defend her jiggling tits with his dying breath. Presumably we'd all be able to have civil discussions about it in which we weighed the relative merits of Quiet's tits against the sanctity of Metal Gear Solid's clownshow universe, but we don't get to do that anymore because everyone is too busy poisoning wells and issuing jeremiads to talk about games. On the gaming forum.

Also, the media tampering thing was simply an example of people starting from the answers they want instead of the questions they want answered.

Are you suggesting people are expressing confirmation biases?!

Here?!

Redryhno! I am surprised at you sir!

Yeah, but the thing is that you're free to think it's stupid(it's MGS, it's all REALLY stupid when you take the logic used into our world), but it rarely stops at that, it continues on to that "ChangeItOrElseVille" place I was talking about.

And it really annoys some people when they then bring up other instances of the franchise having this kind of thing and it becomes clear that alot of the people complaining about it have no idea that Quiet's not an outlier in the series. If anything, she's just another checkbox. And the ass-shaking and "presenting" herself is just like a single cutscene the first time you take her out. And she's still not even an essential character in the game. Which brings us to people needing help understanding.

Nobody really thinks that Kojima's gonna get a sadnessblister, just that the louder and more furious the vocal angry push back, the less likely something they REALLY want is going to get made because a chance was taken before and it was met with a wall of incoherent screaming. Not to mention - I really hate going back around to this but - the majority of people that takes SERIOUS issue with her apparently have no sense of humor to be able to laugh things off and don't really appear to have a way to communicate their displeasure with something that doesn't border on something like...Scientology being criticized or made fun of.(South Park thread's gotten burned into my mind at the moment, so we'll use it) There's rarely any alternative given that isn't just some variation of 'get rid of it' or even a suggestion presented for equal representation of a male counterpart to Quiet.

 

[JimB]

Why are people so pissed off!?

There have been a lot of blanket statements dropped in this thread that I suspect are intended to claim a moral high ground and thereby dismiss the other side as unenlightened and evil, so, as one of the individuals who's pissed off, let me speak to you plainly about my experiences.

I have female friends; women whose feelings matter to me. Several of them are willing to tell me that a lot of the media I enjoy--mostly comic books, but video games as well--make them uncomfortable; that they are trying to live in a world that prizes them for their attractiveness to men, for their responses to men, for their relationships to men, and that the media I enjoy heighten this to shocking levels (well hello there, Vampirella, how are you tonight, dear?). This is probably not something I ever would have noticed, had it not been explicitly spelled out for me, because I am sure deeply accustomed to having my every base whim catered to that it didn't occur to me how much the one woman in any piece of fiction is always hot, very rarely complex enough to cause me to have to think about her, and always pliable to her man's needs. This is the only woman that exists in a lot of fiction, and it's heightened in formats like comic books and video games to a degree I would find hilarious if not for the deep regret that I can't share with my female friends the things I've found in those media, because they can't perceive it as I do. They can't have the same experience I do. Everything about the format is designed to make them understand their place in these worlds is one they don't want.

I'll say it again: It makes me sad. Like, take the comic book Kingdom Come, just for instance. It's brilliant, it's my favorite comic book, and it has moments I will take to my grave as the pinnacle of storytelling. It also has, over the course of two hundred pages featuring every DC hero in existence as well as their hypothetical children, exactly one woman who gets to speak more than one line of dialogue. It's Wonder Woman, and during a book about a war of superheroes triggering the Biblical apocalypse, she starts dating Superman because what else are you gonna do with Wonder Woman when Lois Lane is dead, right?

That's not what makes me angry, though. As I've said repeatedly, it just makes me sad. I don't see any reason why comics and video games have to be like this; I don't see what I, as a heterosexual man, lose if Wonder Woman gets to have a female friend to talk to or if Quiet wears people-clothes. So, I criticize elements that I find to be in poor taste and that exclude the female friends I'd like to be able to share my experiences with, in the hopes that one day we'll both be able to play a Metal Gear game without feeling embarrassed.

What makes me angry is how many people miss the point, and how they miss this point so hard I have to suspect it's intentional. There are three general responses: The first is to refuse to accept that criticism of a game is different from a personal attack on the person who enjoys the game; the second is to call me (and in this instance, since I've invoked my lady friends, them as well) for holding philosophies of Puritanical censorship we never once claimed or implied claiming; the third is to scoff and say that none of the things I perceive and experience are real because my opponent has not perceived or experienced them, the implication presumably being that all of human possibility resides within the life he's lived.

This shit makes me angry because they are defending nothing, trying to improve nothing, only trying to keep themselves from having to consider the world from another person's perspective and examine their own role in that worldview not their own; and to that end they will commit any level of disrespect necessary to support their own views. Watching these hateful acts perpetrated by people who have literally nothing to lose in defense of the nothing they have at stake all for the sake of making sure they don't have to learn compassion infuriates me, and it's become such a predictable response that it's nearly impossible for me to look at an example of this kind of sexually exclusionary media--in your case, Quiet's design--without recognizing the inevitable pattern of hate, personal attacks, and flat-out dismissals that will follow. Pavlovian conditioning at its finest.

On its own, Quiet's design is only stupid and/or juvenile; a costume drawn with the right hand while the left is busily rubbing a cock. It's really not worth getting worked up about beyond the effort necessary to point out I'm not being fooled by the bullshit photosynthesis excuse. What pisses me off is what follows, and what I've seen plenty of examples of here in this thread.

So, tl;dr version, it pisses me off because of the shameless inevitability of progression from "That's a goofy outfit" --> "Go suck Valerie Solanas's cock a little harder, you SJW retard, maybe you'll like the taste of her man-hating jizz so much you won't notice when Obama takes away all our games!"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yet making a logical argument based on the material itself is something that is possible to do. And if you have to resort to heavy cherry picking and ignoring lots of other evidence countering your point then there's a problem.

I'm not saying people can't criticize media. I'm saying people who do so and act like they're completely uninformed idiots who "love the piece of media" except 90% of all the content in it which they want changed because they subjectively dislike it, shouldn't start crying the moment someone laughs at them for it.

What was that? About cherry picking?

Everyone has an opinion, yelling about being offended or attacking people and labeling them for being offended doesn't one more valid.

What kinds of labels? Is "uninformed idiots" a label?

Nor is giving an opinion on if you like or dislike it actually art criticism. Consumer criticism maybe but not actual art criticism.

It's media criticism, as in it is criticism offered about a piece of media. You could also call it "feedback" if you preferred a more generalized term. My understanding, based on your arguments here, is you believe there is "good" feedback and "bad" feedback, and that people who create media should be protected from the latter, and that you are equipped to make that distinction for them.

Getting something changed by shaming, insulting and threatening a creator doesn't make the criticism any more valid than those who got A Clockwork Orange pulled from sale and showing in the UK with death threats against Stanley Kubrick. they got what they wanted by fear, not by choice. No real change was effected. All it did was making people afraid and people who fear tend not to push the boundaries which many pieces of great art try to do.

What constitutes "shaming"? When we call Michael Bay or George Lucas hacks, are we not shaming them? When I call EA a necromantic cabal of greedy vampires, am I not shaming them? Did I not shame Obsidian Entertainment just today when I suggested they couldn't ship a functioning product if their life depended on it? Did I not shame Anita Sarkeesian when I claimed her boring videos were poorly argued and that her shirt was ugly? Did I not shame Bioware for their shitpot ending to ME3, or the listless turd that was Dragon Age Inquisition? We shame people all the time. You're shaming people you believe are your ideological opposites in this post by calling them "uninformed idiots". Certainly you didn't intend for that to be a compliment.

But if I say Quiet is stupid (because she is) and the explanation given for why she looks stupid is even more stupid (which it was), I'm "making Kojima afraid"? Is that correct? Are only SOME forms of insulting criticism "shaming"? Let me guess which ones! I bet I can! Is it, perchance, anything to do with "progressive" ideology? Because no one seems to give a fig any of the other times media gets "shamed".

I'll ask again...is it your intention to create a safe space for media creators where they don't have to listen to hostile feedback that might make them unhappy? Do you believe that you are the appropriate person to be the arbiter of said space?