I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[runic knight]

Part of the reason I dislike her and call her toxic is because she does what every Bill o'Riley or Glenn Beck out there does. I call them toxic to the discussion on politics all the time because they add nothing to the discussion, they derail it near entirely by spewing unproven crap and hiding behind a victim status in order to keep it up and they refuse to address any valid complaints. With Beck and O'Rilely the victim status is the claim they are the voice of the common man, thus any complaint usually is replied with a "if you don't support the real Americans" sort of response from fans or defenders. They are toxic because they not only help create that atmosphere, but perpetuate it by burning bridges for discussion simply by continuing the way they do.
That is what Anita does in my eyes. It isn't just that she is a horribly boring reviewer with an ideological chip on her shoulder and a webcam, it is that she is causing harm to the very discussion itself by polarizing people who would otherwise be having those discussions even more then they should be and by distracting the conversation away from the topic and onto the internet personality herself.

Ok, I see where our opinions split here. I honestly dont see how she poisons the topic at all. So, she made some strange claims about some of the games you like so much, this is understandable, because she is not a scientist, but some activist, so shit happens. Even professors do some false claims time to time. And she doesnt really discuss about her work through the internet. This weighs a bit more grave, but as an internet person who got serious attacked in the past on a very low niveau, I can really understand that, too. Besides that, I just dont see what everybody has against her.
I really think she doesnt 'poisons' the discussion, but the topic poisons the sometimes really immature gamers community

I don't really think she has attacked any games I like to be honest. And even if she had, that is irrelevant to what makes her a toxic entity. When compared to the likes of Glenn Beck, part of that is because she is the face of an ideological campaign that is unyielding, and based in a destructive divisive nature. With Beck, it is an ultra conservative ideology that blames all evils on liberalism. With Anita, it is a feminism that blames problems on sexism. Because she is the spokeswoman on gaming and feminism as an issue (by being the most associated with that topic), her behavior and actions in dealing with criticisms as well as her claims and underhanded emotionally manipulating tactics often causes her to be the topic of discussion more then the actual topic of sexism and gaming when that topic is brought up.

And that topic itself is polarizing people, not just one internet activist.
I think Sarkeesian stands for many gamers for an attack on their own little refugee. That is understandable, but not excusable. Games are now, or will be, a very influental medium, and being that, it should be conform to certain rules like every other respectable medium out there should be.

Sarkeesian represents an attack on journalistic integrity first and foremost. In the same way Beck does on the topic of politics, the same way that it is not the topic or even the leaning on stances, but the behavior and debate tactics. Beyond even that, what you are essentially saying is that an artform has to abide by a moral standard. I fervently disagree there, and even if I can accept that the entertainment aspect should abide by certain principles, someone who uses emotional manipulation and faulty arguments, who steals other people's work and claims it as their own is the last place I would ever go to in order to hear it.

The topic of women and games is a polarizing one to begin with, and one that should take a wholestic approach to examining, understanding underlying causes for behaviors and responses and even have a conscious, open debate not just on how to deal with it, but on what parts we should even deal with in the first place.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.826144-Women-gaming-problems-solution-discussion-1?page=1\
This way my simple attempt, and after many paragraphs, I only managed to barely skim the surface of the why and how of getting more women to participate in gaming in general. I couldn't even get into how they are portrayed in games or how they are represented in developers or publishers because the damn first post was already to bloated with stuff in examining actual ideas relating to the underlying WHY of the current situation.

Anita in turn abandons any sort of exploration or dialog on the topic and instead asserts her notions as the right answer, and uses underhanded emotional ploys to make attacking that harder because some people can't separate her claims from the manipulation. What she does is no different then any sort of conservative pundit, what she contributes is of the same worthlessness to games as theirs is to political discourse. Her continued presence (in using the tactics she uses)in the limelight derails and taints the actual discussion by making it less about the arguments and more about person who is making them, so much so that discussions about gaming and women often result in bickering about her rather then the topic itself. That is a toxic effect to a discussion on a topic if there ever was one.

 

[Erttheking]

What difference does it make in the end if they hate her because she's a woman daring to have an opinion, or if they hate her because she is probably intending to criticize sexist content?

And of course ignore, or even celebrate the fact that whole argument is built upon idea that males treat females like a lower spices because they are males. Just because you have valid point (lack of female protagonists and often quite bad female characters where there are some) doesn?t mean you can piggy back other, quite ideological claims on it. At least those are my qualms.

Oh, I forgot, questioning those claims is Misogyny, and debunking them is highest form of oppression known to human beings.

You know, I don't believe that all males treat women as lesser beings, but I know for a fact that there are plenty of men that do, not to mention even after all the time we have spent trying to get equal rights between the genders, we still have a long way to go.

Also, I think that second point is a mindset that really bugs me. You can't honestly say that there isn't any misogyny in the world, the sheer amount of hate directed at Anita can't all be because they disagree with her, the viciousness came before the videos even came out. Not to mention it kind of feels like you're playing the victim card while ironically criticizing Anita and her defenders for doing the same thing.

 

[DaMullet]

The loss of a trinket would make a terrible justification for the resulting murder-spree. Compare the death of a loved one(played the game, this was a reasonably powerful scene) in the Darkness to the theft of a blingy skull in that 50 cent game... it's not even close to being the same thing.

I emboldened a sentence that just doesn't make any sense to me. That's a leap, isn't it? Why assume that's a statement about the nature of men, rather than just a bi-product of what games do well... Namely space traversal and combat. Are these male characters supposed to resolve their emotional turmoil peacefully, or... something? That might be good if we're accepting the premise that all narrative-driven-media is simultaneously entertaining us and making social statements with everything it does (I don't accept this premise). But... it would make for boring games, wouldn't it? Play-fighting is fun...

Also, "there's so much violence against women in video-games"... where is it? Happy to be proven wrong about this, but I play a lot of games... and I don't see it. It's not so prevalent. It's for some reason more jarring to see a female character be brutalised, but it's not so prevalent... it's just not.

First off, I question the mental stability of anyone willing to go on a murder-spree so I wouldn't put it past them. Case and point; Charles Manson did his spree because of a beetles song. So someone with "THE DARKNESS" inside of them running off and killing people over a trinket makes perfect sense to me.

Hmm... lets see if we can come up with fun games that don't involve killing people 100% of the gameplay. Mass Effect, Fallout, Civilization, Day of the Tentacle, Thomas Was Alone, Minecraft, The Sims... hm... seems pretty easy to come up with a short list off the top of my head. I tried to play through Spec Ops the Line and Bio Shock Infinite and I got bored from the constant murdering. Both great games, but turned into a repetitive chore really quickly for me. Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do.

And lastly, since you can't see the problem you have kinda proved one of Anita's points right. Just like if you go back 100 years and see "Colored" signs for washrooms and drinking fountains; no one saw the problem then. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't something horribly wrong. There is a constant flow of victimized women in the media and it has become so common, that it has become ordinary. Your complete inability to see it, proves my point.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Is she taking an objective or logical approach in her advocacy?

-No? Then why should I care?
-Yes? Then why does she ignore or cherry pick criticism to her weaker or fallacious arguments, and why should I take her argument seriously when she shows no interest in refining her argument further?

People love to defend her lack of engagement with the audience citing the kind of hateful responses she receives (usually as a comment on the quality of youtube comments). Sorry but that's a strawman argument. Even if it's one out of a million, why should that one rational response be thrown away because of the chorus of stupidity that is the internet hate machine?

Advocates and those who try to inform, who try to push change must be prepared to handle the public, its idiocy included. It's arguably the most important challenge in being an advocate for, well, ANYTHING.

And if her videos are for the purpose of entertainment instead of information, now there's even less reason for me to take them seriously.

Personally: I can agree with her on the point that there needs to be more games that don't play the Damsel trope if only for the sake of creative variety (over reliance on something that's easy to sell is stifling), but beyond that I don't really have a use for her as an advocate because again, the valid points she makes are undermined by other logical weaknesses and her unwillingness to address them.

 

[Asita]

And I assume we will agree on one more thing: Her being, in your eyes, a poor defender of her cause is not the main reason why she receives so much flak and abuse - it is the cause itself.

In as much as the rush to back her was clearly nothing more than the Dulcinea Effect in full force... *eyeroll*

I'm not exactly sure what you are insinuating here, and frankly I don't want to know.

Well that's not a healthy attitude now, is it? :/

Let me clarify all the same: As I edited into the post (I'm guessing after you opened the page), I invoked the Dulcinea Effect[footnote]A corollary to the Damsel in Distress describing the trend of people (overwhelmingly male in fiction, at least) to rush to the defense of a woman the second they hear that she's in trouble, risking his life to protect her even if that is the first they've heard of her.[/footnote] facetiously to make a point about assuming motive. Condescending nature of such assumptions aside for a moment, the assumptions both tend to be laughably easy to fall back on as an explanation due to how well either fits the narrative in question ("Sarkeesian wouldn't get this kind of flack if she wasn't a woman, therefore sexism" vs. "Sarkeesian wouldn't get this kind of support if she wasn't a woman, therefore sexism"), but the truth is rarely so simple. Suffice to say that assuming bad faith in an argument tends more to be a result of preconceptions than reality. Pro-Lifers aren't typically misogynists, Pro-Choicers aren't usually hedonists, Atheists can't usually be described as 'raging at the heavens', neither Conservatives or Liberals [in the States] tend to be actively Anti-American, and your typical Internet 'Tough Guy' tends to be all bark, no bite and VERY Politically Incorrect as far as typed out rage goes.

But if you disagree with my statement above, if you believe that all those dickheads abusing her are actually closet feminists who're just unhappy about the way their issue is presented, then I have to assume you are out of your mind.

I have to assume that you're clearly out of your mind.

Closet feminists? No. I simply don't think it's safe to assume misogyny much like I don't assume that the people who expressed the desire to attack Jack Thompson are actually murderous psychopaths in real life. As I said before, the internet has a tendency to lash out like this and that greater trend makes discerning motive a tricky proposition at best, especially when alternate interpretations can be made based on commonalities with prior hate waves (for instance, a strong tendency for hate waves to pop up after a perceived slight against video games)

And really, let's not dismiss the possibility that people can disagree with her argument without disagreeing with the cause.

No one did that, so I don't see your point. Anyway, I need a mental health break, I'm outta here.

I was using hyperbole, forgive me. I probably could have better worded that as "let's not downplay the idea...etc". Anyways, ciao then.

 

[carnex]

You know, I don't believe that all males treat women as lesser beings, but I know for a fact that there are plenty of men that do, not to mention even after all the time we have spent trying to get equal rights between the genders, we still have a long way to go.

There are men who mistreat women. However that does not equal mistreatement of female gender as sistemic problem or inequality of genders. To claim that you would need to prove that it's something happening in large percentage of human interactions (not even majority, but like 20% of cases) and that society treats those action as normal, or at least acceptable behavior. Neither statement would stand up to any critical analysis.

Also, I think that second point is a mindset that really bugs me. You can't honestly say that there isn't any misogyny in the world, the sheer amount of hate directed at Anita can't all be because they disagree with her, the viciousness came before the videos even came out. Not to mention it kind of feels like you're playing the victim card while ironically criticizing Anita and her defenders for doing the same thing.

Again, read the first part of the answer.

On threats. This is internet. I really feel lucky when I can find person that says "I agree to disagree", something I find as common as water in real life. Relative anonymity makes people free to say crazy shit because they think there will be no consequences. Everyone gets threats. I got my life and limb threatened numerous times over such bullshit like need to really study and have harsher grading in schools, over defending people who incidentally, without any possibility of knowledge what otherwise normal and law abiding behavior, either seriously maimed or killed people, over going against feminism etc. My reaction, almost every time, was to invite person to meet me and carry out their threat. And those threats were not what 99% of "threats" are like "someone should shut that ***** up" or "go back to the kitchen". Those were that 1% in style of "I'll come with some friends to teach you some manners old-school style" or directly mentioning to beat, mail, kill me in different ways. Only two took the invitation. Neither showed up (both times I invited them where I would be otherwise, I'm not stupid enough to waste my time waiting for them). So Anita is not an exception, rather the general rule. Internet is often stinking pile of shit. To have reasonable discussion, you ignore those and move on with people who actally debate. There are quite a few ways of dioing that.

Finally, I haven?t played victim card, CloudAtlas did (I'm sorry I accuse you erttheking instead, I lost the track of who I was answering to. Really sorry). I mentioned that it's generally considered unacceptable to question feminist ideology. However if I did, and I'm not stranger to that, I would mention, unlike feminists do, some hard data from the western world like
93-98% workplace deaths are males.
Vast inequalities in family courts
Vast inequality in sentencing for criminal activities
Vast inequality in healthcare system
Inequality in education
Inequality in reproductive rights
Unequal treatment in cases of and sheltering from domestic abuse (well, not inequality, denying possibility that men is target of a woman)
etc

Then I would go towards proving falsehoods of feminist claims of constructs (they don?t even deserve title of theory) like Patriarchy and Rape Culture

Finally I would end up with pointing out how men, in majority of cases blame feminists as small subset of wider group that benefits from those inequalities, for them since it's their activities that resulted in policies being implemented. Feminists, however, blame whole gender for actions of a small subset (in case of criminal activities of any kind) or for even smaller subset benefiting from being in power.

But this is way too serious discussion to have here, on a thread that fights over inequalities of gendered sprites.

 

[Bashfluff]

If you come into a community and say, "Hello, this is sexist, and you need to change it. I need money to get into a position where I can influence developers into changing how they design games," and what you're trying to change not only lacks sexism, but also consists of basic plot devices and the inclusion of sexuality as the result of the target audience, damn straight you will get backlash. I'm glad that happens. I don't like radical feminists trying to make games less interesting by insisting that there are problems when no problems exist, and uses research that is lifted from other people without credit or taken out of context to suit their own narrative. I think that's pretty gross.

Strength (both physical and mental) is one; another is resilience, coolness under pressure, rationality, and perseverance. You might notice that these are often common traits of protagonists in games, from Solid Snake, to Donkey Kong, to Master Chief. This is because in our patriarchal world, these traits are shown to be the most effective to both survival, and success.

You'll also notice that traits associated with femininity, including being emotionally open, vulnerability, caring, or cooperative, are rarely shown to be useful in game scenarios, even though they can add depth to a character.
This is what Anita is talking about when she says the Damsel in Distress is harmful, because it normalizes the notion that a female can't escape their captors, mostly because to escape would call for masculine skills that she does not have, or even if she does have them (Sheik from Ocarina of time), is still prevented from doing so by the confines of the narrative.

...what's the issue? Yes, being emotionally open and vulnerable isn't going to earn you a get out of evil lair free card. Does that surprise anyone at this point? That's not sexism. This is common sense. More than that, those male traits you have listed aren't male traits. They aren't traits that are found in men at a higher rate than they are found in women, they're traits found in capable protagonists.

Different genders have different traits appear at different frequencies. Men tend to have certain traits. Females tend to have certain traits. I'm sure if we wanted to take the time, we could make two lists to show which traits show up more for which gender. Rationality, resilience, intelligence, perseverance, and strength are not included on either list. They're traits that are not connected to gender.

Even more troubling is the sexualization of females in games in ways that serve the player (fan service, skimpy outfits, press X to bone attractive character A) and don't suggest that females can have their own concept of sexuality. I don't believe this is intentional, but I do believe that we write it off as normal when it is really a construction that favors male viewers, and inadvertently belittles female players.

You know what? If you feel belittled when someone puts a hot girl in a video game to appeal to the audience of that game--young male teens--that's as insecure as it gets. It does favor male viewers, yes! Many things in this community do. It's because gaming was a male dominated arena until the last five to ten years or so, so I think it's okay when companies notice that and change their games accordingly. If you know what people you're selling your product to will like, put those things that they like in your game if it fits. That's just common sense.

What baffles me is that women come in and say, "But all of this isn't aimed towards me! I don't like the things that are aimed towards you! Stop making games like that!"

You don't come into a community that you never were a part of in any real sense for most of its adolescence and then command it to change and fit your standards, even if it messes up many of the things that the existing community enjoys. That's selfish and it's petty. You don't crash the party because you don't like how it's going after you just arrived.

You know what they should do? Make their own games! I'm all for encouraging people to make games that they think they can find an audience for when they aren't satisfied with the current offerings on the market. I think that leads to games with heart and with a passion that leads, if nothing else, to originality. When designers are passionate about showing us something we haven't seen before, I get pumped. When you try to shame people for liking the things that they do and when you try to influence designers to stop putting those things in games, that's where we part ways.

 

[TAGM]

You know, I don't believe that all males treat women as lesser beings, but I know for a fact that there are plenty of men that do, not to mention even after all the time we have spent trying to get equal rights between the genders, we still have a long way to go.

Honest question: How many men are "plenty"? How do you discern a vocal minority from something more ingrained in the culture?

Also, I think that second point is a mindset that really bugs me. You can't honestly say that there isn't any misogyny in the world, the sheer amount of hate directed at Anita can't all be because they disagree with her, the viciousness came before the videos even came out. Not to mention it kind of feels like you're playing the victim card while ironically criticizing Anita and her defenders for doing the same thing.

Ok, fine, I agree that the sheer amount of hate directed at Anita can't all be because of disagreement.

But, by the same token, you must admit that the sheer amount of (at least somewhat) well-based criticism against her actions and videos can't all be because of misogamy and dickishness. Or, at the very least, that it's as unlikely as there being no misogyny whatsoever.

 

[carnex]

People here are constantly arguing about whether it's good or bad that females are used as excuse for action. Now, I have my opinions on it like value of female life and limb compared to males and reasons for using excuse over rational reason. But I would like to point out here something else.

How about dropping the whole "hero from the get-go"? Tomb raider used survival/escape as excuse for example (too bad they screwed up Lara as character almost beyond repair) but even that is overused. I want to see more creative approaches. I would like to get games finally recognized as artistic medium but to do that we must provide the reasons and sticking to same thing over and over again will not do. Indie scene is actually doing some work on that front and I simply love that. What we, as consumers, must do is support those and thus show that those are crucial part of what we love.

How about game built around renovating the house? Cross it with wild imagination and things can go crazy. You can use it as simple arcade experience, or as deep psychoanalysis of main character as he/she spurs up memories long passed.

We need more games like
http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/loneliness
games that recognize unique properties of first interactive artistic medium and use it to its full force and capabilities, not relaying on being praised for copying other mediums. There are others, even big budget ones. "Spec Ops: The Line" comes to mind, or "Papers, Please". When we realize full potential that medium presents, most of arguing will finally be realized as superficial and pointless.

 

[Kittyhawk]

I feel you. I get a lot of what Anita is saying too and she makes some valid points. The problem is that some will absorb what she's saying and after too much will see her saying little else.

I'm sure many gamers would like to know more about her, what games she plays etc. Unfortunately, the net vamps have already descended on her with threats and such, just for her FF videos. So we may never find out. Got to hand it to her, though, she certainly does her homework. I'd like to see her playing games though, so we can get a better feel of who she is and what she likes to play. Talking/musing about games is cool, but playing them is much better. So yeah, more vids of her actually playing games and critiquing enjoying them, because academia is cool but a bit high brow for some of a lower simpler mindset.

And if you want to change the world of games for the better, you've got to brave the slings and arrows and get out there. Do interviews, panels at cons etc and get your point across more, and play some games too.

 

[carnex]

I feel you. I get a lot of what Anita is saying too and she makes some valid points. The problem is that some will absorb what she's saying and after too much will see her saying little else.

I'm sure many gamers would like to know more about her, what games she plays etc. Unfortunately, the net vamps have already descended on her with threats and such, just for her FF videos. So we may never find out. Got to hand it to her, though, she certainly does her homework. I'd like to see her playing games though, so we can get a better feel of who she is and what she likes to play. Talking/musing about games is cool, but playing them is much better. So yeah, more vids of her actually playing games and critiquing enjoying them, because academia is cool but a bit high brow for some of a lower simpler mindset.

And if you want to change the world of games for the better, you've got to brave the slings and arrows and get out there. Do interviews, panels at cons etc and get your point across more, and play some games too.

You can't realy say she does her homework, at least not according to ammount of mistakes pointed out. At the very least, it seems that she rushes fact checking of propsed arguments.

But as I said, when we realize there is more to this medium accusations are going to go away and diversity sink in. That is if developers manage it before censorship kicks in.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I dislike Anita's videos because she takes valid points and extrapolates them to absurdity. This goes for all her videos, not just the recent ones.

For all she says in her videos, there's only about 5 minutes of meaty "actually discussing things". You can get a better gist of what she's saying by watching rebuttal videos by the likes of Thunderfoot.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

The loss of a trinket would make a terrible justification for the resulting murder-spree. Compare the death of a loved one(played the game, this was a reasonably powerful scene) in the Darkness to the theft of a blingy skull in that 50 cent game... it's not even close to being the same thing.

I emboldened a sentence that just doesn't make any sense to me. That's a leap, isn't it? Why assume that's a statement about the nature of men, rather than just a bi-product of what games do well... Namely space traversal and combat. Are these male characters supposed to resolve their emotional turmoil peacefully, or... something? That might be good if we're accepting the premise that all narrative-driven-media is simultaneously entertaining us and making social statements with everything it does (I don't accept this premise). But... it would make for boring games, wouldn't it? Play-fighting is fun...

Also, "there's so much violence against women in video-games"... where is it? Happy to be proven wrong about this, but I play a lot of games... and I don't see it. It's not so prevalent. It's for some reason more jarring to see a female character be brutalised, but it's not so prevalent... it's just not.

First off, I question the mental stability of anyone willing to go on a murder-spree so I wouldn't put it past them. Case and point; Charles Manson did his spree because of a beetles song. So someone with "THE DARKNESS" inside of them running off and killing people over a trinket makes perfect sense to me.

Hmm... lets see if we can come up with fun games that don't involve killing people 100% of the gameplay. Mass Effect, Fallout, Civilization, Day of the Tentacle, Thomas Was Alone, Minecraft, The Sims... hm... seems pretty easy to come up with a short list off the top of my head. I tried to play through Spec Ops the Line and Bio Shock Infinite and I got bored from the constant murdering. Both great games, but turned into a repetitive chore really quickly for me. Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do.

And lastly, since you can't see the problem you have kinda proved one of Anita's points right. Just like if you go back 100 years and see "Colored" signs for washrooms and drinking fountains; no one saw the problem then. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't something horribly wrong. There is a constant flow of victimized women in the media and it has become so common, that it has become ordinary. Your complete inability to see it, proves my point.

You're missing something obvious there. You could make the Darkness a game based on the mourning of a missing trinket, but there's no way you'd have any sympathy for Jackie. In a Charles Manson video-game I would be seriously doubting the protagonists motivations the whole way. A measure of sympathy for the controlled character is a good thing, the death of a loved one is as universal of an emotionally charged event as you could find, they chose it for good reason.

I don't know what you're trying to prove. Sure, there are games that don't only revolve around killing(though I do find it funny that 3 of your 6 or 7 examples feature it heavily), it doesn't at all negate the fun of play-violence. That was a very weak attempt at character-assassination, I don't kill peoples children... I initiate the rearranging of polygons on my screen, red is heavily featured... someone should lock me away.

"And lastly"...

I can't help but feel this is too nebulous to be meaningful(though again, your example makes me laugh). I agree with your point about hindsight though(not in your details). I have a feeling we're going to look back on this anti-masculinity bent that we've been on for a while now and wonder what the fuck we were thinking.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

snip

snip

You're missing something obvious there. You could make the Darkness a game based on the mourning of a missing trinket, but there's no way you'd have any sympathy for Jackie. In a Charles Manson video-game I would be seriously doubting the protagonists motivations the whole way. A measure of sympathy for the controlled character is a good thing, the death of a loved one is as universal of an emotionally charged event as you could find, they chose it for good reason.

Yeah, a video game where the character kills a bunch of people just to get a trinket would never work! Because we've forgotten that the Uncharted series (and really, any Indiana Jones-style game) exists!

Ha!

Do you play it to be sympathetic towards Drake though? I've said before that I don't think the Uncharted series has good story, and that I have no real sympathy for Drake's actions(I actually did for Jackie, and largely because of the scene we were talking about). It's still a fun ride, I'm not knocking the series...

I find the notion that you could easily swap out Jackie's girlfriend for a trinket to be utter nonsense, that's what I'm saying. It's not the same thing, it doesn't have the same punch. Still, I should probably be thankful that you're not suggesting that I get off on murdering people's children and what not. So... thanks for that.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

snip

snip

You're missing something obvious there. You could make the Darkness a game based on the mourning of a missing trinket, but there's no way you'd have any sympathy for Jackie. In a Charles Manson video-game I would be seriously doubting the protagonists motivations the whole way. A measure of sympathy for the controlled character is a good thing, the death of a loved one is as universal of an emotionally charged event as you could find, they chose it for good reason.

Yeah, a video game where the character kills a bunch of people just to get a trinket would never work! Because we've forgotten that the Uncharted series (and really, any Indiana Jones-style game) exists!

Ha!

Do you play it to be sympathetic towards Drake though? I've said before that I don't think the Uncharted series has good story, and that I have no real sympathy for Drake's actions(I actually did for Jackie, and largely because of the scene we were talking about). It's still a fun ride, I'm not knocking the series...

I find the notion that you could easily swap out Jackie's girlfriend for a trinket to be utter nonsense, that's what I'm saying. It's not the same thing, it doesn't have the same punch. Still, I should probably be thankful that you're not suggesting that I get off on murdering people's children and what not. So... thanks for that.

You're kind of missing the point. The point is that there are an infinite number of other ways of motivating a character besides "getting revenge for/rescuing a female." It's not like that is the apex of character motivations; in fact, if anything it's one of the lazier choices a creator can make, because it's played out and it reduces a major character to a one-dimensional object. That's the great thing about avoiding stereotypes. You are forced to come up with something new, and almost 100% of the time what you come up with is more effective than relying on old tropes.

Replace "female" with "loved one" and actually... Yes, I do think it's right there on the apex of human character motivation, up there with survival. It's as good as anything. Protect this, get revenge for that... It's not only games that constantly employ these basic ideas, it's everything, and for good reason.

 

[Billy D Williams]

I'm not saying you can't have this conversation (even if I did have the authority to), but is there really more that we can add to this debate? I mean seriously, hasn't everything been said on the topic already? I know we like to beat a topic to death every once in a while around here (cough cough Mass Effect 3 ending cough cough) but this is starting to go a little far, even for our standards.

Anyways, if you do want my two cents on her, she is boring, she is a little misleading and isn't always accurate with her claims and she boring. Is she correct in her ideas? A few, doesn't change the fact that she is almost impossible to watch.

Also, how does her greenscreen and Adobe After Effects justify a $130,000 Kickstarter? I mean I know she didn't ask for that much, but it doesn't justify not really being upfront with where its going (at least that I know of, I haven't really done to much research admittedly).

 

[carnex]

Except... video games are the only medium that relies so heavily on this as motivation. Most legitimate great art relies on actual real-life human motivations that people actually deal with (how many people do you know that have their loved one kidnapped, and then had no other choice but to go rescue them?). The only other place that you see this so commonly is in action movies (which video games love to imitate). I'd bet you can't name 5 non-action movies/books/tv shows/plays that are about a dude rescuing the woman he loves, or about a dude getting revenge on somebody for the woman he loves (heck, even if it's non-gender-specific I bet you can't do it).

I promise you, it's not common because it's effective, it's common because it's easy.

I thhink you didn't realize one important difference between games with story and games with excuse.

Excuse sets a goal and moves away. That is all t is, a goal. And it moves away for interactive part to kick in. Like old arcade games, or more recently Great Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams, or Super Meat Boy.

Story stays with player. It goes with player along the game. Game becomes about journey. Goal is still set, but it, more then often, goes forgotten by player, or is moved around, switched, abandoned or even turned in on itself. Goal servers the story. Uncharted games, you mentioned, are perfect examples of using some of these tactics. Game is about journey. Half way in the game you have hard time remembering why did you go on a journey in the first place.

Since excuse has to set goal, people go for high emotional stakes. It's not necessary, but it's what hits us in the guts. Yes, we would go after treasure, or just to dick around. Often players totaly skip story (that is not option for developers though, they kind of have to put in story or excuse even if there are examples of games without either) and just go for gameplay.

But those two ways of giving context works in different ways and on different games. example of how wrong using a story is Duck Tales Remastered. Story interrupts gameplay, but developers knew that if they didn't interrupt gameplay all the story tid-bits would be ignored or just overheard. Which means that story didn't have its place in that game in the first place.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

snip

snip

You're missing something obvious there. You could make the Darkness a game based on the mourning of a missing trinket, but there's no way you'd have any sympathy for Jackie. In a Charles Manson video-game I would be seriously doubting the protagonists motivations the whole way. A measure of sympathy for the controlled character is a good thing, the death of a loved one is as universal of an emotionally charged event as you could find, they chose it for good reason.

Yeah, a video game where the character kills a bunch of people just to get a trinket would never work! Because we've forgotten that the Uncharted series (and really, any Indiana Jones-style game) exists!

Ha!

Do you play it to be sympathetic towards Drake though? I've said before that I don't think the Uncharted series has good story, and that I have no real sympathy for Drake's actions(I actually did for Jackie, and largely because of the scene we were talking about). It's still a fun ride, I'm not knocking the series...

I find the notion that you could easily swap out Jackie's girlfriend for a trinket to be utter nonsense, that's what I'm saying. It's not the same thing, it doesn't have the same punch. Still, I should probably be thankful that you're not suggesting that I get off on murdering people's children and what not. So... thanks for that.

You're kind of missing the point. The point is that there are an infinite number of other ways of motivating a character besides "getting revenge for/rescuing a female." It's not like that is the apex of character motivations; in fact, if anything it's one of the lazier choices a creator can make, because it's played out and it reduces a major character to a one-dimensional object. That's the great thing about avoiding stereotypes. You are forced to come up with something new, and almost 100% of the time what you come up with is more effective than relying on old tropes.

Replace "female" with "loved one" and actually... Yes, I do think it's right there on the apex of human character motivation, up there with survival. It's as good as anything. Protect this, get revenge for that... It's not only games that constantly employ these basic ideas, it's everything, and for good reason.

Except... video games are the only medium that relies so heavily on this as motivation. Most legitimate great art relies on actual real-life human motivations that people actually deal with (how many people do you know that have their loved one kidnapped, and then had no other choice but to go rescue them?). The only other place that you see this so commonly is in action movies (which video games love to imitate). I'd bet you can't name 5 non-action movies/books/tv shows/plays that are about a dude rescuing the woman he loves, or about a dude getting revenge on somebody for the woman he loves (heck, even if it's non-gender-specific I bet you can't do it).

I promise you, it's not common because it's effective, it's common because it's easy.

It's a plot point that requires action to resolve... you're being ridiculous. Can you name me 5 better character motivations for an ensuing bloodbath? Rescue, revenge and survival are what's commonly used... Again, it's because it works. Those are good calls to action, they speak to us.

You're right that video-games are closer to action films than any other genre, but... Frankly, so fucking what? That's obvious, action(space traversal and combat) is what a game does well, all other forms of drama that they attempt tend to fall flat, or at least pale in comparison to what film can do.

Games should(and mostly do) play to strength. The mechanics come first, the story comes second.

 

[thenoblitt]

im pissed that she spent the kickstarter money on other things like a 1k pair of shoes, and she released her video like 6 months late, and it wasnt even higher quality than her free videos she made before.

 

[Uhura]

@thenoblitt
How do you know if she has spent KS money on shoes? Are you talking about that fake tweet?