I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[mecegirl]

@mecegirl
I have no qualms with males being used as fan service for women or homosexual men or whoever sees it as attractive. I like to see female body so why would I object on opposite taking place?

As I put it, I own my own sexuality and let others own their own. If a man decides to be eye candy for someone, that is his decision. If artist decides do draw that, again, it's his decision. I may agree with it, or may not, but they made it so if I want to protest it, protest goes to person doing it and person publishing it, not bash consumers of it.

Now, there are things that I would consider problematic because I would consider consumer mentally unstable, like pointless dismemberment, torture and such and I my write open protest against those. But even that, I do believe that as long as all people involved are in agreement without outside pressure about what they are doing, it's none of my business. Involved includes affected of course.

oh, yes. And I don't watch Teen Wolf. Sorry.

The problem I addressed in my first post is with the comparison between genres, not that men shouldn't like sexualized images at all. Which is why your response to me makes no sense. There are genres where sexulized images are in someways the whole point. But to expect sexulization to be taken seriously when it is displayed willy nilly outside of those genres? It's just not gonna happen. It's all about the tone of the work. Its the same with humor or extreme violence. Everything has its place.

 

[runic knight]

So I keep seeing the same wrong arguments popping up in these threads again and again, so I'm going to try and address them all in this post.

Oh oh! lets see how many you misrepresent, misunderstand or outright dismiss?

"Her videos are boring."
They are meant to be educational, not entertaining. She's not Yahtzee. Also that doesn't disprove her point.

Never used as an argument against her stances, just as a complaint against her videos. A valid complaint, as even if educational, being entertaining (not hard to watch) is still something even education should strive for. Thus, no one says her begin dull is a mark against her arguments, just that it doesn't help at all. So, one misrepresented.

"She doesn't even play games."
She has said numerous times that she is an a gamer. There is photographic evidence.

I take a picture of myself next to a stockpile of ammo does not make me a gun enthusiast. Beside that, claims I am do not make me so either. More a "cherry on top" sort of complaint then actual point of argument though, from all the people I see use it.

"She didn't even play all the games she talks about."
First off, this is an assumption, not a fact. Secondly, even if this is true, it doesn't matter. Do you need to play through the entirety of every Mario game to know that most of them are about Mario saving Peach? The video is about overall trends, not specifics.

You need context in order to start making grand sweeping claims as she has. When it is proven she has stolen footage from let's players to start with, and makes grand claims that lack context (or get details wrong), it horribly undermines any argument made.

"She stole her footage from Let's Play videos."
This one is complicated. Technically the creators of the videos don't own the copyright to that footage any more than she does. Of course, an argument can be made that they are creating new content using the copyrighted content; in any case, this is a new phenomenon, and there isn't much moral or ethical precedent for these videos, so it's unfair to judge her for it. Also, this still doesn't disprove her points.

This undermines her case in two ways. First, by not giving credit for other people's work of doing the lets plays she stole from, she is doing no different then, say, youtubers posting videos of a daily show segment mocking the news on their channel. I believe that was still considered bad. This in turns makes her less trustworthy as a source and when most of her arguments are nothing but personal interpretation, that lack of trust does a lot to undermine things.
Secondly, it adds credence to the idea that she has not played the games she should be reviewing, something suggested before this tidbit because of how little she seemed to be aware of smaller details or even overall themes. Bayonetta for instance.

"But what about Samus?"
The argument is not that there are NO good female characters, but that there aren't enough of them, and many of them support regressive gender stereotypes. Again, overall trends, not specifics.

I hear this alot, but it just a backhanded way to make a claim that such portrayals negatively affect society, an argument as supported as "violent games make people violent". beyond that, it also relies on an unspoken assertion about how there should be a certain amount of female character of a certain type, something I would love to see you prove and quantify.

"Just because a game has some sexist bits in it, that doesn't mean the game is bad!"
This is actually completely true! This is also not what Anita is saying at all (she mentions this is the videos). Take Arkham Asylum. It can be both a totally awesome game AND a game with sexist portrayals of women (like 5 female characters and they're all dressed like strippers?). Things are not all bad or all good.

One good point so far. Pity that it is based in a sexist idea that is essentially just forcing a cultural idea of what should or should not be acceptable in women onto the female characters and claiming that failure to meet those standards are sexist. Why is a female character dressed in a way to highlight sexual traits sexist? They obviously are not just their sexual traits but are more fleshed out characters, so that can't be it. Beyond that, it seems you rest it solely on the idea that by dressing sexy, they are made sexist, an idea that is just a cultural gender trope (women shouldn't be sexualized or it is bad) rather then something inherent because they are women. Are they sexy just because they are women (this would be sexism) or are they sexy for other reasons (character personality, history or game stylism?)

"But she doesn't respond to criticism."
First, Youtube comments are literally the opposite of intelligent criticism. Secondly, why are you entitled to her response? There are a million internet nerds with "criticism" of her work. Does she have to respond to every single one of them for her points to be valid? Not to mention that she actually does address many of these criticisms in the videos.

No one thinks the YouTube comment section is a haven of intellectual honesty. Trying to present this complaint in that light is dishonest. When people refer to them, they see it as a sign of closing all avenue of allowing the discussion to unfold in the place it started at. The problem here is that there are many valid criticisms to her work that are never acknowledged in the least, and suggest that rather then someone who wants to further the discussion, as claimed, she is instead an ideological preacher. Her methods of closing off any form of comment or discussion support this idea, and in doing so, again, undermine her integrity as someone claiming to want discussions on the topic in general.

"If this was a scientific study, she would have to stand up to peer reviews"
This isn't a scientific study, it's art criticism. Also, her "peers" would be actual video game critics, not random internet commenters.

I seem to remember sociology and psychology being at least somewhat scientific. Given that she is viewing the art through the lens of a social and cultural influence, the mention is not unexpected. Further, as a comparison of her work to scientific work rather then saying it is scientific, the point is that her refusal to address any sort of critique, again, undermines her arguments by refusal to address the valid concerns. This is especially damning when compared to, say, the new-age health market scams who do the same and, like Anita, make claims of persecution as justification for why they don't address valid criticism.

"Why doesn't she make video games on her own?"
This is like saying "Why are all these civil rights protestors having all these marches, instead of making new laws themselves?" She's doing this in the hopes that the people able to change the industry will do so. Besides, one game won't fix the issue. Again, it's about the trend, not specifics.

Problem with this analogy. See, people can't make laws. It isn't something they can do without being given the authority of a public office. Making games are not restricted to that, thus anyone can make them with the effort. That aside, this is a dumb point in general I'll grant you. Not because her making a game would be pointless (it would actually do a lot to help her cause if only in showing what sort of games she is after (you know, an example of a solution) and if there is a market for the games she wants) but because she has revealed herself to be the feminist equivilent of Glenn Beck, so one can't expect any sort of legitimate effort toward a solution there.

"I agree with her, but I don't like her voice/face/makeup/clothes"
This is just petty and mean, and has nothing to do with anything.

True. Good thing most people only use that as opinions on why they don't like her rather then as a dismissal of her arguments. Isn't it great that the person and the argument can be treated as two seperate things, and that an attack on the one doesn't equate to an attack on the other? Therefore opinions on, say, Anita herself do not affect the arguments she made at all, and critics of those arguments do not mean they are made because of who (or what gender) the one making those arguments is.

"I agree with her, but I wish she would make her points in a way that didn't bother me so much"
This is when you need to ask yourself, why does this bother you?

Because she is an emotionality manipulative ideologue that undermines the very cause she professes to fight for by being a toxic asset to the actual discussion the same way Glenn Beck is to political discourse or Lord Monckton is to climate science. You know, a perfectly valid concern about her personally that is not because her topic is "controversial" or that she is a woman in the least.

 

[generals3]

"Her videos are boring."
They are meant to be educational, not entertaining. She's not Yahtzee. Also that doesn't disprove her point.

But if it's educational it fails on an other level. Lots of claims, zero evidence for the claims. Even amateur youtube videos which try to be educational cite more than her and she got money for it. Is it so much asked to say how she "knows" that the recurrence of the DiD trope will reinforce toxic and paternalistic views in RL?

"She didn't even play all the games she talks about."
First off, this is an assumption, not a fact. Secondly, even if this is true, it doesn't matter. Do you need to play through the entirety of every Mario game to know that most of them are about Mario saving Peach? The video is about overall trends, not specifics.

It does matter because context matters. She often paints an incomplete or even worse an incorrect image of what happens in games and yes that matters a lot. Unless off course you believe that context doesn't matter.
And if it's not a fact than the other option is that she has been deliberately intellectually dishonest and manipulative, which is in fact worse.

"She stole her footage from Let's Play videos."
This one is complicated. Technically the creators of the videos don't own the copyright to that footage any more than she does. Of course, an argument can be made that they are creating new content using the copyrighted content; in any case, this is a new phenomenon, and there isn't much moral or ethical precedent for these videos, so it's unfair to judge her for it. Also, this still doesn't disprove her points.

It's totally fair. It's not honest for one, it creates the illusion she did all that work while she didn't. And it is also rude. If anything it shows she's willing to be dishonest about the work she has put into her videos to make herself look better.

"But she doesn't respond to criticism."
First, Youtube comments are literally the opposite of intelligent criticism. Secondly, why are you entitled to her response? There are a million internet nerds with "criticism" of her work. Does she have to respond to every single one of them for her points to be valid? Not to mention that she actually does address many of these criticisms in the videos.

But she could reply to a few instead of pretending they don't exist and pretend the only ones who disagree are evil trolls threatening to rape her. (and let's not forget she deletes valid criticism on her FB to create the illusion no sane person disagrees and all the sane people blindly adore her)

Again a great display of manipulative and dishonest behavior. Who would want to be educated by someone who clearly belongs at the head of a ministry of propaganda? Might as well listen to Glenn Beck for educational purposes...

"If this was a scientific study, she would have to stand up to peer reviews"
This isn't a scientific study, it's art criticism. Also, her "peers" would be actual video game critics, not random internet commenters.

It's more than just criticism though. It would be if she left out pseudo-scientific claims about the impacts on society she claims to be fact (and not guesses/opinion).

"Why doesn't she offer solutions"
She does, actually, in the most recent video. Also, most of the videos have yet to come out.

Yeah and her solution was boring and unoriginal. She obviously spends more time nitpicking what is wrong instead of thinking about what would be right (which would be much more constructive).

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I'm truely baffled as to why we can't get together, get noticed, and give the gaming industry inscentive to change.

I gotta wonder why the game industry isn't having people visit web forums like this one for data. Heck, maybe they are, and they're just lurking? I dunno.
Honestly, I think the data gathered here might just be more honest, and well thought out than in a lot of other methods.

I guess people have their camps outside of the issue, and refuse to let another camp win even if it's to their own detriment.
Or some variant like "No! I won't let us win on these terms!" or something.

I believe they do have people on most of big gaming forums. Not in official capacity, just people from development and publishing houses being there on their own. Why it doesn't flip the switch? Perhaps because they tried it before with appalling results. Old sierra did a survey for, I'm not sure but I think Space Quest 6. Online response was massive, when online was incomparable to today's presence. They invested a lot in game which simply didn't sell based on that data. Few pills like that would make next pill really hard to swallow.

As for the second part, yes, you are right. Because there is more things there than simple representation will cover. Let's cut off what we agree on from what is controversial. Like better female characters and more and better female protagonists from demonization of male sexual preferences.

I suppose so, but being burned by a method of gathering data can happen through any method of getting data. Polls, market testers, surveys, etc. Yet some methods remain part of the arsenal.

The method I'd use, personally, is quietly read threads about gaming, and what people think about gaming, and compile a report. Maybe have someone else do it independently incase there's different conclusions.

Threads are likely to be pretty candid about what people want. Not just threads on female representation, and who talks about these, but general stuff.

The problems with actively asking people's opinions is that they'll not always be truthful. More over depending on how the question is asked, you'll get differing answers.

 

[carnex]

@mecegirl
OK, I see your point. Yet I don't agree. i don't take soft sexual content as seriously as you. As long as there isn't something really clashing with simple eye candy I don?t care.

Let me put it this way. Pan's Labyrinth is one of the best movies I saw in last several years. It's dead serious and is one long exercise in heart stinging and I wouldn?t want half naked female parading across the screen. However, Showdown in Little Tokyo is also one of the movies i really enjoy. It's stupid, badly made, badly acted action schlock but fun as hell and Tia Carrera and Renee Griffin are just the perfect spice for it. Same goes for tv series. In Brothers in Arms it would really ruin the mood. But in some teen centered thing? As a male teen? I would not be able to see enough of it.

To say it again, as long as it doesn't really detracts from the serious story, I don?t care. I like seeing female body. I like the shape of it, I like the meaning of it and i like what it represents. I know that some, or many people don't agree with me and that is perfectly fine. I'm not telling you what to like. For me that is deeply personal decision, one nobody should be able to change as long as it doesn't affects then in some real, objective way.

BTW, did you watch ROME?

 

[Corran006]

Here is my feelings on the matter. I think the largest problem is the lack of female protagonists. There is also the issue is how woman are sexualized, many wear skimpy outfits and seem to be just there to pose. The problem is simply a poorly written female, its lazy and its easy. So if we want better stories in our games this has to chance. The tropes themselves really don't bother me all that much. When you really looking at it just a poorly done narrative.

What I don't like about Antia is the baseless accusations of how this effects society at large with little proof. I also don't like how she does not allow for any criticism of her work while her supports try and say this should be show in higher education. Her defense for now allowing comments is threats and insults; the problem with this is that many people in the public light, male or female are going to face the same thing. This is not a problem for woman only men also face these threats.

The only time she allowed such criticism is when it benefits her so she can use it as weapon to draw money and support to her cause.

I don't think she realizes marking and the production of video games either, some of the things she wants change are going to be very harmful to the bottom line. I never see her supports talking about the love of video games nor do they seem to support games who are making strides with how woman are shown. One would think woman would be encouraged to go out in numbers and buy these games to support them so more are made in like minded ways. Once a Publisher sees a market for a game that will give them a good return do you think they would say no I don't want to make money in that area.

These feminists need to start supporting games that are moving in the right direction and it be known why they bought them. They should be reaching out to these pubishers and tell them why they bought it and what they would like to see.

That would be a good start.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Spoiler

It's no secret that I'm well aware guys like boobs. I like boobs, too! I think everyone does.
I recognize sex sells, and I'm willing to make compromises in light of that. It's a valid, but pretty cheap sales tactic, especially when it's most of what the game's draw is when the game is not a sex game.
I still gotta think that when women wanting to game are faced with the likes of Ivy Valentine, and women made in a similar image are going to get a bit turned off at their abundance, which is why I clammor for variety. Women don't have to dress that way to be hot, yet it's the easiest way so it gets done more often. If we're going to invite them, a balance between sexy and conservative needs to be found, and it's not that frikking hard to do that, IMO. Clothes that are even remotely flattering, and stylish can acomplish a lot without showing a ton of skin.

You bring up a point in the power trip. I crave such experiences, and that's a part of the reason I push for more female playable characters.
An NPC is pretty much never going to give me a power trip, even if she were a goddess that supported the playable guy through out an entire game. Power trips are only really power trips when the player wields the power. It's as simple as that.
That said, I gotta feel it's safe to say I'm not alone in that opinion.

The thing about indie games is that they have to be appealing enough for word of mouth to work. That's really really hard to do for one game. No one game is going to fell the notion that women hurt games.
Even with multiple recommendations, it's unlikely to be significant outside of the indie scene.
Few indie games are runaway successes, after all.
Even fewer are to the point they get a AAA treatment. Considering Portal is one of them, I'd say it hasn't done as much as I'd have hoped a popular game with a female protagonist would do for representing female protagonists as evidence that a female protagonist doesn't kill a game.
People had little to zero problems with Chell, and the game is what I'd think of as a success, but here we are, still, struggling to find games with female leads that aren't trashy looking, in good games, that aren't gender select.

Further compounding the problem is the simple fact that until indie games can have a strong presense outside of the PC, and IOS arenas they're going to be limited by the audience. Maybe the Xbone, and the ps4 will be that bridge for that, but we won't know until we get there.

Even -then- an indie game will have to be successful enough in reaping profits that the gaming industry takes note. That's an insane goal. Minecraft hasn't even gotten there since I see little attempts to copy the formula. Actually, no attempts outside of other indie games come to mind.
And even if the industry tries to copy the formula, I would still worry that if the indie game originally had a female playable chracter that she'd get removed in favor of a guy only game. I'm not really alone in the worry, either.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-20-bastion-developer-teases-transistor-for-pax-east

The indie scene, as lovely as it is, just doesn't seem up to the task of showing the world that women don't hurt a game. There's too much in the way.
That isn't to say a person can't try, and prove me wrong. The person that proves me wrong aughta get a nobel peace prize, and get more money than god.

The gaming industry is absolutely not having their cake, and eating it, too near as I can tell. All the financial troubles they're facing is proof of that, IMO. The layoffs, games failing despite reaching multi-million sales, radical ideas from Ubisoft, Xbone's DRM/rstrictions, DRM in general, the talks of piracy and used games, etc., etc.
IMO there's a large difference between having women as consumers, and having -happy- female consumers. Some might be content, and some might be happier, but their moods have room to go up, and when morale increases word of mouth certainly will, too.

The problem with "don't buy sexist games"/ vote with your wallet is that:
1: Guys in general get catered to enough that they don't really care. It's basically "eff you! got mine!" It's not universal among guys, but It's enough that the industry isn't hell bent on changing any time soon.
2: The Hobson's Choice. If we don't buy into it, will we really be able to game? If we do boycott the games we feel are sexist, how long will we have to?
3: Getting large amounts of people to actually do this. Between the guys that have theirs, and the people that crack under pressure I doubt we'd have enough to make a dent in the industry.

But this brings up an interesting notion. Looking at a more golden era where Tomb Raider games were common as well as Parasite Eve, and a handful of other less memorable games in the psx and ps2 era with women at the lead, plus Resident Evil games where you had a choice to play as a girl, and then looking at things in the ps3 era where such games are seemingly far less common, and the seeming increase in financial troubles, maybe people were already voting with their wallets? Maybe the industry is sinking because they seemingly abandoned a lot of female gamers, and guys that liked a woman as a lead?

Spoilered to save space, just for the sake of statement.

I absolutely agree sexiness is a cheap, easy marketing strategy, and I have no problem with it as a sex-positive person. For me, it's the context around that sexiness that matter.

Case in point, you mentioned Ivy. I really like Ivy, she's my favorite character from the SC series, and she has an interesting and powerful character backstory, and fighting style. If you look at her appearance and costume in SC1/2, it's form-fitting, stylish, and evocative without being necessarily exploitative, if not ridiculously out of place in the game's setting. Starting in SC3, her costume became more and more revealing and her proportions became increasingly unrealistic (to be nice about it) with each game installment -- coupled by, amazing coincidence, retcons and developments in her story that made her a weaker, more stereotypical, female character while nerfing her as a fighter -- until Ivy was essentially SoulCalibur's bondage queen-flavored tig-ol-bittied answer to Dan Hibiki. That was bullshit.

Chell got some sequel sexiness too, which disappointed me. I thought her appearance in Portal 1 was realistic, representative, and even attractive in its nuanced way. She really looked like a conventionally-pretty woman in her late twenties to early thirties, who is going through hard times and deals with constant stress -- no makeup, mussed and slightly greying hair, dark circles around the eyes and crows feet, slightly emaciated face. I'm not saying I have a "distressed woman" fetish here, but rather that her not-so-plain Jane, but worn-out, appearance was realistic, empathetic, and very compelling. In Portal 2 they made her look a lot more like her face model which involved a lot of sexing up and making her look much younger, because Alesia Glidewell is crazy beautiful, which I'll admit was something of a let-down but by no means anywhere near exploitative.

Moving on, the troubles with the gaming industry are far more attributable to unsustainable business models, poor developer-publisher dichotomies and relationships, and a generally poor management culture than any single issue with how games are made or to whom they're marketed. These endemic problems with the gaming industry aren't because women are (or aren't) buying games with appeal to them, they're because stockholders demand too much, publishers poorly budget and set punishing deadlines, developers haven't freedom to be terribly creative or innovative, and by the time a game goes gold publishers have hyped it to unrealistic levels while overspending on advertising. Consistently having the 45% of the gaming population that are female as consumers won't fix a business model that's foundationally broken.

Beyond that, it's a matter of degrees. Supporting indie developers helps them grow and get to a point they can compete with triple-A companies. Patronizing forward-thinking companies may be a drop in the water compared to the mass appeal/mass market/lowest-common-denominator games and companies, but at least you'll have a handful of reliable companies that markets to your interests, and that's what really matters. Doing that in no way restricts your ability to game, as nostalgia titles and "niche" (i.e. non-sexist) titles will always be made by someone. By making that decision as a customer, you're denying yourself the dubious "privilege" of engaging in the cesspool of not just game design, but gaming communities, to which I say,

Spoiler

 

[Corran006]

I question if the support for the kinds of Games Sarkeesian want are even possible to be made given the kinds of games females seem to like. In my experience most woman seem to like the kinds of games that are on Facebook or the Iphone. Many of the woman I know don't like the violent AAA+ games that are popular that seem to make the most money in the market place. While I understand there are girls and woman who do like these games just as much as their male counter parts I wonder just how large this female audience is.

if the audience is not there for the money to be made these games just won't be profitable.

 

[carnex]

I suppose so, but being burned by a method of gathering data can happen through any method of getting data. Polls, market testers, surveys, etc. Yet some methods remain part of the arsenal.

The method I'd use, personally, is quietly read threads about gaming, and what people think about gaming, and compile a report. Maybe have someone else do it independently incase there's different conclusions.

Threads are likely to be pretty candid about what people want. Not just threads on female representation, and who talks about these, but general stuff.

The problems with actively asking people's opinions is that they'll not always be truthful. More over depending on how the question is asked, you'll get differing answers.

Hmmmm, maybe I didn't manage to say it well. There was interest for it. But that interest didn't actually translate into sales. people wanted it, just didn't want to pay for it.

For a more recent example look for Operation Rainfall on bringing over several games for Nintendo Wii over to North America. I think it's safe to say that Nintendo will stop listening to it's audience, other then ka-tching of a cash register, for a while.

 

[LetalisK]

Anita has never played a video game in her life, and that isn't invented, its fact.

From where? Because it sounds more like you pulled it out of thin air.

The facts are that she uses uncredited footage from other people's Youtube channels in her videos and passes them off as her own footage.

Which would imply that she hasn't played (Or at least hasn't recorded herself playing) The games she's talking about.

Yes, the bolded part would be the correct implication based on that fact. There is a world of difference between that and "she's never played a game in her life". And just to be clear I'm not assuming or arguing she has played all or any of the games she's talking about, but rather pointing out that a particular statement is only based on prejudicial speculation rather than any facts.

Well to be fair I never said that. (That was Zenn3K)
I have no reason to believe she doesn't play games.

I know Zenn3k initially brought it up, but since you responded to my question, I responded in kind.

But if her operation is all above board why didn't she credit any of the people who's videos she used?

It's fishy, is all. She got Kickstarted for over $100K. She can afford a capture card.
(Plus have you seen her Bayonetta video? If she ever played Bayonetta I'm a monkey's uncle)

If her opinions are based off second hand plot synopses or even watched Let's Plays as apposed to actually playing the games herself she should say so.
And if she did play the games (After receiving $158K) Why didn't she record her own footage?
If she used other people's footage for convenience (Total possibility) why didn't she ask permission or at least credit them?

It doesn't prove she didn't play the games, but it makes it pretty clear that she's a shady character

I'm not quite sure how to respond since the only thing I was addressing in my response to Zenn3k was his accusation that she's never played a game, not whether or not she runs a shady business. I don't have an argument either way for that. *shrug*

 

[runic knight]

@runic knight

@generals3

Since replying to all of your points would take up an absurd amount of space, I'm just going to respond to some of the major points.

First point is about the context of the tropes she's discussing. The thing is, every single one of these tropes does have a narrative reason for existing in their respective games (I'm assuming that's what you meant by context). Mario saves Peach because he likes her, the Darkness guy saves his wife because he loves her. The argument is not that these tropes don't make sense; many of them are very good, well-told stories. However, these are fictional stories, and the creators have total control over what story they choose to tell. All Anita is pointing out is that all too often creators rely on these same tropes, over and over again, so maybe creators should choose to tell new, less common stories, stories where that focus on the female character and give her agency(as these stories are unfortunately rare). The context of the individual stories doesn't make a difference to this larger trend.

The problem with this is that the creators have the choice, so why shouldn't they make the stories (and use the tropes) they want to or that they know will sell well? Yes, the lack of creativity with them does suck as a larger trend, but that trend itself is the result of many pressures in the gaming world, from industry stagnation and conservativeness to audience demand, to sequel limitations to whatever else. It would be nice to see things changed, but simply labeling the stories or tropes as sexist as though it will somehow shame creators into changing is futile at the best, when it isn't presumptuous and dishonest.

As you say her,e the problem is the trend, not the individual, yet in labeling a trope as sexist, it really just attacks the individual. As for what one can do about the trend, my first suggestion would be to break away from the triple A industry as best we can, as the amount of copy-cat behavior there makes it very hard to.

As for the Let's Play issue, my only point is that the ownership of those videos is poorly defined. They are a new medium, and there aren't any set rules for how you should treat the creators. So, it is unfair to say that Anita broke any rules, ethical or otherwise, when she used that footage.

The ownership (in context to the point of it being brought up)is easily defined. She did not play the games she took the video from, nor did she acknowledge who she took the videos from. Instead she presented it with an illusion that it was from her experience. So besides that she may have broke the rules of the youtube terms of service, it is still a sign that she was dishonest and that in turn undermines her arguments, especially since all her arguments rest on her assertions and interpretations.

To go back to your Daily Show example: if someone used just the news footage from the show, not anything else, then yes, that would be okay. The Daily Show did not create that footage, and they are using it for the same purpose that this hypothetical person would (though this example doesn't really work, because The Daily Show clips usually have some extra graphics over the footage, which they did create and do own).

I was referring to when the daily show uses clips from news broadcasts before riffing them. Still, it seems a rather moot point about the, for lack of a better term, legality of the action when the entire damage it causes to her argument and her case are because of the dishonesty of them. Regardless if the people own the rights to their own lets plays or not, Anita did not give them credit. If it was a college paper, that would be plagiarism. Yes, even a review of someone else's material still has to be cited (since they, in turn, should have the original work cited, thereby making a chain to the source. By not doing that, she dishonestly represented their work as her own, and, as I said before, undermines any sort of trust one can give her in support of her assertions, which are the core of her videos and arguments.

 

[generals3]

First point is about the context of the tropes she's discussing. The thing is, every single one of these tropes does have a narrative reason for existing in their respective games (I'm assuming that's what you meant by context). Mario saves Peach because he likes her, the Darkness guy saves his wife because he loves her. The argument is not that these tropes don't make sense; many of them are very good, well-told stories. However, these are fictional stories, and the creators have total control over what story they choose to tell. All Anita is pointing out is that all too often creators rely on these same tropes, over and over again, so maybe creators should choose to tell new, less common stories, stories where that focus on the female character and give her agency(as these stories are unfortunately rare). The context of the individual stories doesn't make a difference to this larger trend.

Yes and no. Sometimes the context does affect her narrative. Take for instance double neon dragon in her first video. She claimed the sister was some kind of helpless damsel while the ending clearly showed she was a bad ass chick who just got caught by surprise and overpowered by the bad guys (two very different pictures!). Now she did correct it in her second video but the mistake should have never happened to begin with. Secondly comes starfox in dinosaur planet. She didn't mention starfox was a character already well established and tries to make it look like "an other dood got priority over a chick in a game", while it was obviously "the devs thought a well established character would sell more than a totally new one". She also omitted the fact you also play as Krystal in that game, again showing she's not just a helpless damsel.

But the worst part was when she discussed the euthanized damsel. When she actually said "the context within the narrative doesn't matter, it's always wrong to make the player kill the damsel because *totally unrelated domestic abuse statistics in the US*". This was probably the worst because she's implying that somehow having the player kill a "possessed" women he holds dearly will somehow translate in him thinking domestic abuse is right?! How are they even comparable?! Isn't the fact that the context in the VG actually makes the killing 100% justified quite important? Isn't the game saying nothing more than: "well let's say somehow your wife is turning into a monster it's ok to kill her". Well duh, i'd kill anyone (man or woman) turning into a monster (that's what zombie movies taught me!).

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Spoiler

It's no secret that I'm well aware guys like boobs. I like boobs, too! I think everyone does.
I recognize sex sells, and I'm willing to make compromises in light of that. It's a valid, but pretty cheap sales tactic, especially when it's most of what the game's draw is when the game is not a sex game.
I still gotta think that when women wanting to game are faced with the likes of Ivy Valentine, and women made in a similar image are going to get a bit turned off at their abundance, which is why I clammor for variety. Women don't have to dress that way to be hot, yet it's the easiest way so it gets done more often. If we're going to invite them, a balance between sexy and conservative needs to be found, and it's not that frikking hard to do that, IMO. Clothes that are even remotely flattering, and stylish can acomplish a lot without showing a ton of skin.

You bring up a point in the power trip. I crave such experiences, and that's a part of the reason I push for more female playable characters.
An NPC is pretty much never going to give me a power trip, even if she were a goddess that supported the playable guy through out an entire game. Power trips are only really power trips when the player wields the power. It's as simple as that.
That said, I gotta feel it's safe to say I'm not alone in that opinion.

The thing about indie games is that they have to be appealing enough for word of mouth to work. That's really really hard to do for one game. No one game is going to fell the notion that women hurt games.
Even with multiple recommendations, it's unlikely to be significant outside of the indie scene.
Few indie games are runaway successes, after all.
Even fewer are to the point they get a AAA treatment. Considering Portal is one of them, I'd say it hasn't done as much as I'd have hoped a popular game with a female protagonist would do for representing female protagonists as evidence that a female protagonist doesn't kill a game.
People had little to zero problems with Chell, and the game is what I'd think of as a success, but here we are, still, struggling to find games with female leads that aren't trashy looking, in good games, that aren't gender select.

Further compounding the problem is the simple fact that until indie games can have a strong presense outside of the PC, and IOS arenas they're going to be limited by the audience. Maybe the Xbone, and the ps4 will be that bridge for that, but we won't know until we get there.

Even -then- an indie game will have to be successful enough in reaping profits that the gaming industry takes note. That's an insane goal. Minecraft hasn't even gotten there since I see little attempts to copy the formula. Actually, no attempts outside of other indie games come to mind.
And even if the industry tries to copy the formula, I would still worry that if the indie game originally had a female playable chracter that she'd get removed in favor of a guy only game. I'm not really alone in the worry, either.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-20-bastion-developer-teases-transistor-for-pax-east

The indie scene, as lovely as it is, just doesn't seem up to the task of showing the world that women don't hurt a game. There's too much in the way.
That isn't to say a person can't try, and prove me wrong. The person that proves me wrong aughta get a nobel peace prize, and get more money than god.

The gaming industry is absolutely not having their cake, and eating it, too near as I can tell. All the financial troubles they're facing is proof of that, IMO. The layoffs, games failing despite reaching multi-million sales, radical ideas from Ubisoft, Xbone's DRM/rstrictions, DRM in general, the talks of piracy and used games, etc., etc.
IMO there's a large difference between having women as consumers, and having -happy- female consumers. Some might be content, and some might be happier, but their moods have room to go up, and when morale increases word of mouth certainly will, too.

The problem with "don't buy sexist games"/ vote with your wallet is that:
1: Guys in general get catered to enough that they don't really care. It's basically "eff you! got mine!" It's not universal among guys, but It's enough that the industry isn't hell bent on changing any time soon.
2: The Hobson's Choice. If we don't buy into it, will we really be able to game? If we do boycott the games we feel are sexist, how long will we have to?
3: Getting large amounts of people to actually do this. Between the guys that have theirs, and the people that crack under pressure I doubt we'd have enough to make a dent in the industry.

But this brings up an interesting notion. Looking at a more golden era where Tomb Raider games were common as well as Parasite Eve, and a handful of other less memorable games in the psx and ps2 era with women at the lead, plus Resident Evil games where you had a choice to play as a girl, and then looking at things in the ps3 era where such games are seemingly far less common, and the seeming increase in financial troubles, maybe people were already voting with their wallets? Maybe the industry is sinking because they seemingly abandoned a lot of female gamers, and guys that liked a woman as a lead?

Spoilered to save space, just for the sake of statement.

I absolutely agree sexiness is a cheap, easy marketing strategy, and I have no problem with it as a sex-positive person. For me, it's the context around that sexiness that matter.

Case in point, you mentioned Ivy. I really like Ivy, she's my favorite character from the SC series, and she has an interesting and powerful character backstory, and fighting style. If you look at her appearance and costume in SC1/2, it's form-fitting, stylish, and evocative without being necessarily exploitative, if not ridiculously out of place in the game's setting. Starting in SC3, her costume became more and more revealing and her proportions became increasingly unrealistic (to be nice about it) with each game installment -- coupled by, amazing coincidence, retcons and developments in her story that made her a weaker, more stereotypical, female character while nerfing her as a fighter -- until Ivy was essentially SoulCalibur's bondage queen-flavored tig-ol-bittied answer to Dan Hibiki. That was bullshit.

Chell got some sequel sexiness too, which disappointed me. I thought her appearance in Portal 1 was realistic, representative, and even attractive in its nuanced way. She really looked like a conventionally-pretty woman in her late twenties to early thirties, who is going through hard times and deals with constant stress -- no makeup, mussed and slightly greying hair, dark circles around the eyes and crows feet, slightly emaciated face. I'm not saying I have a "distressed woman" fetish here, but rather that her not-so-plain Jane, but worn-out, appearance was realistic, empathetic, and very compelling. In Portal 2 they made her look a lot more like her face model which involved a lot of sexing up and making her look much younger, because Alesia Glidewell is crazy beautiful, which I'll admit was something of a let-down but by no means anywhere near exploitative.

Moving on, the troubles with the gaming industry are far more attributable to unsustainable business models, poor developer-publisher dichotomies and relationships, and a generally poor management culture than any single issue with how games are made or to whom they're marketed. These endemic problems with the gaming industry aren't because women are (or aren't) buying games with appeal to them, they're because stockholders demand too much, publishers poorly budget and set punishing deadlines, developers haven't freedom to be terribly creative or innovative, and by the time a game goes gold publishers have hyped it to unrealistic levels while overspending on advertising. Consistently having the 45% of the gaming population that are female as consumers won't fix a business model that's foundationally broken.

Beyond that, it's a matter of degrees. Supporting indie developers helps them grow and get to a point they can compete with triple-A companies. Patronizing forward-thinking companies may be a drop in the water compared to the mass appeal/mass market/lowest-common-denominator games and companies, but at least you'll have a handful of reliable companies that markets to your interests, and that's what really matters. Doing that in no way restricts your ability to game, as nostalgia titles and "niche" (i.e. non-sexist) titles will always be made by someone. By making that decision as a customer, you're denying yourself the dubious "privilege" of engaging in the cesspool of not just game design, but gaming communities, to which I say,

Spoiler

I definitely can't argue that the gaming industry is all kinds of messed up.
I agree having consistently 45% of women as a customer base won't fix things, but what I'm saying is that if those women realize the gaming indusrty is catering more to women, they'll feel better about recommending it to more women, and when more women see that it's true, they'll get on board. More women as customers, more money spent by women.
Still, even that might not fix anything. Just add more fuel to the fire that is the burning ship that is the gaming industry.
Hopefully business models the gaming industry uses can right itself.

I understand what you're saying about supporting indie developers but growing to where they can compete in the big leagues? That requires a really good game, or a steady supply of good ones. They need that reputation of making great games with what they have to get that sort of revenue.
The problem with finding a company that reliably markets to my interests is that my interests are kinda narrow in female protagionists. If I can't get those reliably, the company isn't for me.
Honestly there's only a few companies I can think of that appeal to me like that. Frankly, right now, I think it's just Bioware (though I still say gender selects are a bit of a cop-out) and Koei who regularly has their warriors series have compitent women.
'm prolly forgetting a company, or two, but meh.
I gotta wonder if there are indie developers who'll regularly feed my desire for female power trips? If not then I'm concerned about supporting them. If they just stop producing female protagonists, then I wasted my money on'em.

It's not that I hate guy protagonists, or won't play as them, mind you, it's just that I'm jaded that that I either play as them, or barely game.
Female protagonists in good games are pretty rare for me. A rare luxury that I prioritize. Yeah, I'm missing out on potentially good games, but I'm also missing out on the misery of unrelateable, and/or boring characters. Even if a female character is boring as crap, we at least have gender as a common ground.
Sure I can relate to some guys, but really the notion of me relating to every guy in every game? meh.
Relateability to the character helps immersion, of course.

 

[Dogstile]

I don't dislike the fact she has ideas.

I dislike the fact she closes off any chance of anyone debating the issues with her ideas.

If she were a scientist, she'd refuse to have her research peer reviewed.

I'd refuse peer review, too, if it consisted of drawings of me being raped or flash games of punching me in the face.

Abortion doctors get blood thrown over them and still agree that people can look into what they do. Drawings and flash games are nothing in comparison.

Also holy shit the OP tried to say they didn't like anita? This was basically fanboying/girling.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I suppose so, but being burned by a method of gathering data can happen through any method of getting data. Polls, market testers, surveys, etc. Yet some methods remain part of the arsenal.

The method I'd use, personally, is quietly read threads about gaming, and what people think about gaming, and compile a report. Maybe have someone else do it independently incase there's different conclusions.

Threads are likely to be pretty candid about what people want. Not just threads on female representation, and who talks about these, but general stuff.

The problems with actively asking people's opinions is that they'll not always be truthful. More over depending on how the question is asked, you'll get differing answers.

Hmmmm, maybe I didn't manage to say it well. There was interest for it. But that interest didn't actually translate into sales. people wanted it, just didn't want to pay for it.

For a more recent example look for Operation Rainfall on bringing over several games for Nintendo Wii over to North America. I think it's safe to say that Nintendo will stop listening to it's audience, other then ka-tching of a cash register, for a while.

Ohh, I see what you're saying now.

Ya know, Jim Sterling did a video on that phenomena where polls don't pan out:
also, sorta

Rewatching these vids, honestly, games should just get made and published with as little interference as possible. Screw market testing, to hell with anything else. Developers are generally gamers, aren't they? They have an idea of what's fun, right? Not necessarily mass fun, but fun. So just let them just make games.
If I ever hear of another instance where a character was forcibly changed, it'll be too soon.

I dunno. 'm not a massively business savvy person. I just want games I want to play.