I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[Smeggs]

My stance is still and always has been that I just don't care. Couldn't care less about her or her videos. Maybe if they actually seemed like they might spur some form of change I may take note, but otherwise, just another person shouting about things that hardly effect people in their daily lives outside of video games.

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'm always curious why people say she leaves no room for discussion just because she disabled her youtube comments. You could always e-mail her site and engage from that angle, it's not like youtube is the only way to start dialogues, though I believe these are pretty rare given the age of youtube commenters.

Of course the real problem is that she probably has thousands of those (and more then likely just a ton of ugly hate mail) and can't respond to everything as fast as you'd like.
So I guess talking about her on a forum is the next best thing in my mind...

As for her "research," isn't her thesis available online?

Considering all of the flaming, trolling, venom and vitriol she'd get on her comments section regardless of whether or not people actually watched the video, I'm surprised anybody even questions why she would close comments.

If you really want to talk with the woman, then yeah, you could try emailing her, but considering she probably receives just as much bigoted hate mail from that as well I'd be unsurprised if she never answered back.

Still, that's no excuse to avoid debate altogether. That shows a sign of not only lack of faith in your own points being made, but a lack of reason and makes it seem as though you're just as close-minded as those flamers and trolls.

 

[Angelblaze]

If you aren't properly informed on a topic, you shouldn't be trying to change peoples opinions on them. End of discussion.

So what you're telling me is that you've spent a few days or weeks as a female in the video game community, then? Enduring things like being called "the *****" because you dared question the potential sexism in the industry/community?

Because if you're not properly informed on how females are treated or react to these things, you shouldn't be trying to change their opinions, right?

First off, your comment is about a strawman as it gets.

But for the record, I played a female toon in a MMO for years. I also had a male toon in that same MMO.

The female toon was treated better, given free stuff, invited early to dungeons and raids, and practically royalty.

The male toon was just "another person". Where is her video on THAT topic? How women are treated better in online social settings? Oh wait, that doesn't fit her "victim" story, better leave that out as well.

Please tell me more about how your ONE case actually proves that all women - and I mean EVERY. LAST. ONE - in MMOs are treated like royalty, because speaking as a woman nothing is further from the truth.

Part of the reason I had to change my name to a non-gendered one in LoL is because of some of the shit that I was told - people mud sling a hellova lot less when your 'just another person' believe it or not.

Furthermore, did you keep charts that compared and contrasted all of the information you just described such as the items given, the value of said items, so on and so forth? Because if not, you could just be facing a case of 'Grass is greener.', you felt like you were treated as being special because you were quicker to notice, because things were different.


Plus, why do guys immediately assume that I WANT to be treated differently then anyone else for being a woman, simply because I say I am? I want to identify as my gender and not be called 'him' or 'that guy' without getting some super special treatment because of it.

If someone tried to give me free blue and orange equips in PoE simply because I was a woman, I'd actually be offended. I consider it almost an insult really - like a 'You probably can't do it without me because your a giiiiiirl' type thing, even when I know its not meant that way. Same for guys who just follow you mindlessly in MMOS trying to get added to your friends list.

No.
I will not add you.
I don't care how 'sweet' and 'chivalrous' you THINK you're acting.
I don't want any of your, or anyone elses fucking attention or gifts unless its out of actual non-gender related friendship or kindness.

I'd like to note that this was never responded to despite the fact that the poster still lurks this thread, occasionally posting - would really like to see your response at this point.

 

[MoeMints]

I'd like to note that this was never responded to despite the fact that the poster still lurks this thread, occasionally posting - would really like to see your response at this point.

That post was a fallacious rant that uses as little credibility as what its responding too, since it also uses ONE case.

 

[SnakeCL]

My stance is still and always has been that I just don't care. Couldn't care less about her or her videos. Maybe if they actually seemed like they might spur some form of change I may take note, but otherwise, just another person shouting about things that hardly effect people in their daily lives outside of video games.

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'm always curious why people say she leaves no room for discussion just because she disabled her youtube comments. You could always e-mail her site and engage from that angle, it's not like youtube is the only way to start dialogues, though I believe these are pretty rare given the age of youtube commenters.

Of course the real problem is that she probably has thousands of those (and more then likely just a ton of ugly hate mail) and can't respond to everything as fast as you'd like.
So I guess talking about her on a forum is the next best thing in my mind...

As for her "research," isn't her thesis available online?

Considering all of the flaming, trolling, venom and vitriol she'd get on her comments section regardless of whether or not people actually watched the video, I'm surprised anybody even questions why she would close comments.

If you really want to talk with the woman, then yeah, you could try emailing her, but considering she probably receives just as much bigoted hate mail from that as well I'd be unsurprised if she never answered back.

Still, that's no excuse to avoid debate altogether. That shows a sign of not only lack of faith in your own points being made, but a lack of reason and makes it seem as though you're just as close-minded as those flamers and trolls.

Other Youtube commentators get death threats, vitriol, trolling and venom thrown at them (like Thunderf00t, who also had his face photoshopped onto some gay porn and circulated). His comment section is still open in his videos.

Men's Rights Commentators like girlwriteswhat have open youtube commentation, and they get called some terrible things too, their real home addresses and phone numbers leaked, phone calls to their jobs and schools.

The difference is that these individuals view freedom if speech and free exchange of ideas as more important.

 

[Grampy_bone]

Would anyone take Anita seriously if she were a man?

Think about it.

In western society we are all programmed to take notice whenever a woman is upset about *anything.*

Anita is just another Jack Thompson. Videogames brainwash people into committing violence. *yawn*

Her opinions are lacking in merit and have no value whatsoever. She deserves not the slightest countenance from anyone.

Yet here we are, having yet another 12 page discussion about it.

If games promote misogyny, then games also promote violence (and theft, and vandalism). End of story. There is no escaping this argument. There is no way you can claim gaming influences certain types of behavior and not others. All or none gentlemen.

 

[SilverUchiha]

My issue isn't so much about her opinions or her ideas. Granted, all she's really doing is pointing out the obvious (thus far) in her game series. That said, she has managed to point out a few things I hadn't noticed, but nothing all that shocking either.

What really bugs me the most is how she spends somewhere near half-an-hour to get her point across in a single video (which ended up being multiple videos covering one subject). I'm pretty sure those videos could have been cut down quite a bit to make them punchier, more digestible, and it might even allow her to release more of them more frequently. Especially when I see other video series covering similar controversial topics and they manage to get most of the information and opinions out in 10 minutes or less. And sometimes they even go out of their way to make it entertaining to boot.

 

[DaMullet]

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.

You're going to have to do better then that to convince me that people play the darkness for the moving emotional story line.

I have nothing against play-violence, I enjoy me some Mortal Kombat every once in a while. But the violence in that game is completely different then the violence in a game like Postal (Just going to the extreme example here). Like the difference between a willing battle to the death between opponents and a racist firing squad. Sure, in both scenarios, someone dies, but it's completely different. I feel that too many games out there you're placed in the role of an executioner. Kill these people because we told you too regardless if they're innocent or not. And I don't really care if its just polygons or not; the game tells its story through its gameplay. Its hard for me to connect, feel sympathy, or even feel comfortable with a protagonist that slaughters people without any remorse. And I have to raise an eyebrow at anyone that can.

(The difference in violence in Mass Effect, even though it does focus on combat, is that you know why you're fighting each group of enemies in each mission. A lot of times you can have conversations and try to make peace/truce with them and not to fight. Then when they choose to fight, you know that this is what they want.)

Anti-masculinity? I'm sorry, but who the fuck is talking about anti-masculinity? Cause I'm sure not. My beef is the fact that some men think its okay to look at women as things instead of equals. Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue. Black slavery wasn't fixed because they enforced white slavery. Men have their own list of problems and kicking them when we're down is just cruel. But that's not the topic that we're talking about here. Antia is focusing on one problem; one problem out of many in the world. So why do you think that the media treating women on equal footing as men would require men to be less then what they are?

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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.

You're going to have to do better then that to convince me that people play the darkness for the moving emotional story line.

I have nothing against play-violence, I enjoy me some Mortal Kombat every once in a while. But the violence in that game is completely different then the violence in a game like Postal (Just going to the extreme example here). Like the difference between a willing battle to the death between opponents and a racist firing squad. Sure, in both scenarios, someone dies, but it's completely different. I feel that too many games out there you're placed in the role of an executioner. Kill these people because we told you too regardless if they're innocent or not. And I don't really care if its just polygons or not; the game tells its story through its gameplay. Its hard for me to connect, feel sympathy, or even feel comfortable with a protagonist that slaughters people without any remorse. And I have to raise an eyebrow at anyone that can.

(The difference in violence in Mass Effect, even though it does focus on combat, is that you know why you're fighting each group of enemies in each mission. A lot of times you can have conversations and try to make peace/truce with them and not to fight. Then when they choose to fight, you know that this is what they want.)

Anti-masculinity? I'm sorry, but who the fuck is talking about anti-masculinity? Cause I'm sure not. My beef is the fact that some men think its okay to look at women as things instead of equals. Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue. Black slavery wasn't fixed because they enforced white slavery. Men have their own list of problems and kicking them when we're down is just cruel. But that's not the topic that we're talking about here. Antia is focusing on one problem; one problem out of many in the world. So why do you think that the media treating women on equal footing as men would require men to be less then what they are?

I don't say they do play The Darkness for the storyline. Mechanics first, narrative second.

I mostly agree with the assertion that a game tells it's story through it's game-play too, and I think it's counter-productive when there's a clear difference between cut-scene narrative and the actual meat of the game (the action). I see no point in challenging eachothers moral view these things, we could raise eyebrows all day long and I doubt it'd do anyone any good. Opinions... I'm still laughing about "Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do." Good times...

You might wonder why I'm talking about anti-masculinity, I might wonder why you're bringing up racial-segregation... It actually ties in fairly nicely with "Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue.", which I do agree with. The problem being that-that seems to be exactly what our actions are achieving on the gender issue. Men aren't doing so well these days and it seems set to get worse.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

edit - Captcha is "bad egg". Even captcha is judging me...

 

[ShakerSilver]

Y'know, I've been thinking about something... why did she even need all that money in the first place? She obviously had all the recording equipment and editing software (she was making videos before her kickstarter), and probably didn't spend it on games, since she's taken all her footage from Let's Plays. Could this just have been some way to scam some money off of the social justice crowd?

Spoiler: Something tells me there might be a bit of truth to that.

http://anongamer.tumblr.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1l6lsw/internet_sleuths_uncover_anita_sarkeesians_past/

 

[Viredae]

Right, I'm not gonna post much on this thread, I think Anita is a fraud, or at best poor at getting her point across and her series is ultimately pointless.

I'm not gonna talk about her characters, I'm not going to pretend to know her feelings or her thoughts or any such bullcrap.

But if you wanna sit here and argue with me that "her videos make sense" then I have a challenge for you:

Get me her research material.

Because let's remember, these videos were supposedly made to be used in classrooms on an academic level, so that means there must have been some scientific research that she undertook, I also understand that Anita promised some of her actual research in the kickstarter to some of her backers, and if any of the backers actually has this research I would love to see it.

And bear in mind I want to see SCIENTIFIC research, not just opinion pieces masquerading as a sub-par college paper, because until anyone does that for me, Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman when they argued "Violent Videogames make you violent" (which I'm surprised so few people mention the irony that so many people are defending what is essentially the same accusation) much like today's "sexist videogames make you sexist", because those guys that we despised so much? Remember them? They at least had that, granted, it was bought off research, but it was something at the very least.

So there's your challenge, and until you do that, I'll consider your words nothing but hogwash.

 

[Thr33X]

Short and sweet...in my opinion post YOUR opinion on any form of media be it YouTube or otherwise and not allowing for others counter with THEIR opinions, productive or otherwise, is like saying "here's what I think, and I don't care what you think because what I say is more important". And that defeats the purpose of whatever message you're trying to make. Personally, I haven't even watched this video, nor will I, simply because whatever it I have to say in rebuttal of what she says can't be said. That's like being talked at as opposed to talked to, and if that's the case I'd rather not even listen.

 

[Demongeneral109]

Lest we forget that she is terribly under-informed on the topic of gaming and shouldn't be talking about it in the first place. The ***** doesn't even know WHO Samus is, and wants to talk about women in gaming. Fuck off Anita.

Does that mean if I don't know who Ellen Ripley is, I shouldn't be talking about women in movies?

If I don't know who Jane Austen is, should I not be talking about female authors?

If I don't know who Georgia O'Keeffe is, should I not be talking about female artists?

This might be a loaded question, but how is knowledge of who Samus is relevant to the greater topic of the portrayal of females in gaming? Better yet, considering the latest Metroid outing, it might be better that Anita doesn't know who Samus is, because Other M is one of the most embarrassing, patronizing, insulting things I've ever seen in the entire video game medium.

OT: To be honest, I haven't actually watched her videos. They're lengthy, supposedly rather dry, and she apparently spends more time simply pointing out the issues than trying to offer suggestions on how to change them for the better. I have nothing against her, and all of the people getting angry about her are just giving her a louder and louder voice to sway the industry with.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with having games like Mario, Dragon's Crown, The Witcher, or even Gears of War; So long as they aren't the overwhelming majority, which currently they tend to be. I don't believe there's a problem with having strong, nuanced, deep stories with complex characters and stereotypical "Bowser is holding the Princess hostage!" stories. Unfortunately, apart from being brought about by sheer laziness on the writers' parts, I don't know why these tropes show up as often as they do and so I don't know what we can really do to change it.

I'm just gonna go out there and say, if you wish to analyze a topic, you need to be able to desconstruct counter-examples to prove your argument. Therefore, if you want to disucss feminism in games, you damn well need to know who Samus Aran, one of the most well known females in games is. Not knowing that inherently lessens the validity of your work and invites claims of confirmation bias. If I were in her place, I would have used Samus to further my point, in that until the Other M, which handled things remarkably badly, Samus displays minimal 'feminine' traits(although this is highly debatable with the baby metroid and other such examples of femininity in her games.

 

[DaMullet]

I don't say they do play The Darkness for the storyline. Mechanics first, narrative second.

I mostly agree with the assertion that a game tells it's story through it's game-play too, and I think it's counter-productive when there's a clear difference between cut-scene narrative and the actual meat of the game (the action). I see no point in challenging eachothers moral view these things, we could raise eyebrows all day long and I doubt it'd do anyone any good. Opinions... I'm still laughing about "Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do." Good times...

You might wonder why I'm talking about anti-masculinity, I might wonder why you're bringing up racial-segregation... It actually ties in fairly nicely with "Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue.", which I do agree with. The problem being that-that seems to be exactly what our actions are achieving on the gender issue. Men aren't doing so well these days and it seems set to get worse.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

edit - Captcha is "bad egg". Even captcha is judging me...

Maybe the "murdering someone's child" comment was a little over the top. My apologies. I just still fail to see how someone could enjoy a story about a hero that murders people in the hundreds without regret. Maybe you could help shine some light on that.

I like to use racial-segregation as a comparison because it has one big thing in common with sexism; Both are negative stereotypes based solely upon a person's appearance. It's the old judging a book by its cover idiotic mentality.

My view of the common man these days, I'm going to really over generalise like crazy here, is that there are very few actual men. Most are whiny babies that feel threatened and have a panic attack when they meet a woman that's a strong willed, free thinker, educated, and/or over 100lbs. That's just too much for their pathetic little minds to handle and they go into a defensive mode to protect their fragile little egos by whatever means necessary.

If men were actually men and could handle a real woman, then I think a lot of this sexist crap would go away. Maybe 'handle' isn't the right word. If men took it as a compliment to themselves that they have a strong woman, instead of being intimidated by her, then things would get better. I know I would much rather have a wife like a tiger then a wife like a hamster.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

Hey, he knew exactly what he was getting into when is showed up in that arena with me! LOL

 

[DaMullet]

Right, I'm not gonna post much on this thread, I think Anita is a fraud, or at best poor at getting her point across and her series is ultimately pointless.

I'm not gonna talk about her characters, I'm not going to pretend to know her feelings or her thoughts or any such bullcrap.

But if you wanna sit here and argue with me that "her videos make sense" then I have a challenge for you:

Get me her research material.

Because let's remember, these videos were supposedly made to be used in classrooms on an academic level, so that means there must have been some scientific research that she undertook, I also understand that Anita promised some of her actual research in the kickstarter to some of her backers, and if any of the backers actually has this research I would love to see it.

And bear in mind I want to see SCIENTIFIC research, not just opinion pieces masquerading as a sub-par college paper, because until anyone does that for me, Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman when they argued "Violent Videogames make you violent" (which I'm surprised so few people mention the irony that so many people are defending what is essentially the same accusation) much like today's "sexist videogames make you sexist", because those guys that we despised so much? Remember them? They at least had that, granted, it was bought off research, but it was something at the very least.

So there's your challenge, and until you do that, I'll consider your words nothing but hogwash.

I agree, an opinion without fact is just smoke. So yes, she should release all of her research data. But until that happens, let's work through our own together shall we? We will build a hypothesis, make some observations, and then see if we can come up with some conclusions on our own.

Let's build a simple hypothesis;
Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE
Oh wait, they do. I wonder why they're being ignored?
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
If these were not frequent, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they are, at least enough to build a whole website around it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7671-Gamer-Guys
Jimquisition, need I say more?
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
This seems like overkill, maybe its just me.

Hmm... interesting. It took me about 10 minutes to make a pretty strong list for my hypothesis.

What evidence can you provide to me to support your theory that there's isn't a problem that needs to be talked about by .... someone?

 

[generals3]

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

You failed already. Publishers don't think women don't play video games, publishers think female leads sell less. Totally different. And what this useless ESA study doesn't tell you is that male gamers in general spend a lot more time and money on VG's. And it's money spent which matters for publishers, not the percentage of who touched a video game.


And the rest is pretty much pointless. Everyone knows there are idiots on the internet. Racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. And because of anonymity they aren't scared to express these heinous feelings.

 

[broca]

Let's build a simple hypothesis;
Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women.

Which is a useless hypothesis. Core terms are not clearly defined (Which games? AAA? AAA + Indie? AAA on console? CoD and Halo? ... What means "gaming community"?, Which definition of sexism is used?) and the hypothesis on the whole is to broad, as games and the gaming community are far to diverse to make sweeping statements about all of it.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games

That's not what the article says. Instead it says that a unspecified number of publishers rejected a game with a female lead or recommended change the lead to a male. Three problems: We only have their side of the story, so it's impossible to accurately assess what happened. Based on only one example without any real details (e.g. how many developers declined because of the gender) it is impossible to make assessments of whether it is a general problem in gaming. Even if a significant number of developers decline to develop games with females leads, you haven't shown that they do this for sexist reasons or that this behavior is sexist.

http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE
Oh wait, they do. I wonder why they're being ignored?

First, the given statistics are mostly useless, as they come from a study that doesn't give its methodology and was commissioned by a games industry lobby group. Second, even if we accept the statistic as valid, there's still the problem that the number of male and female players is compared without taking into account the different gaming habits of younger males and older females. Males (especially younger ones) are much more likely than females to play AAA games, which is one of the reasons why there are more AAA games aimed at males than females. Still no proof of sexism.

http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
If these were not frequent, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they are, at least enough to build a whole website around it.

Yes, harassment is clearly a problem. But, it's also clearly a problem of specific games or genres, not gaming in general. And while sexism can be a reason for harassment, there are other possible explanations. Still no proof of sexism in general.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7671-Gamer-Guys
Jimquisition, need I say more?

I never understood why people value Jimquisition so much. But that aside, isn't the episode you linked about the hole "fake gamer girls" controversy? While that could be explained by sexism, but could also explained by other stuff. Even if we accepted that the "fake gamer girls" concept is based on sexism (which is at least debatable) there is no evidence for how common such sentiments are, so that it can't be used to make assumptions about gamers in general.

=http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
This seems like overkill, maybe its just me.

Great, you have proven that youtube comments sections can be hellholes. Still doesn't say anything about sexism, as long as you can't distinguish between trolls and misogynists. Also doesn't allow making assumptions about gamers, as there is no way to know how much harassment (trolling or misogynist) comes from gamers and how much comes from other people (remember, Sarkeesian did get a lot of internet attention, which makes her a natural target for all kinds of people).

Hmm... interesting. It took me about 10 minutes to make a pretty strong list for my hypothesis.

What evidence can you provide to me to support your theory that there's isn't a problem that needs to be talked about by .... someone?

I think there are problems and i think that they should be talked about, but not because of the points you bring up, which i mostly find unconvincing. If anything, sweeping statements like "Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women" hurt the debate by putting people on the defensive.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I don't say they do play The Darkness for the storyline. Mechanics first, narrative second.

I mostly agree with the assertion that a game tells it's story through it's game-play too, and I think it's counter-productive when there's a clear difference between cut-scene narrative and the actual meat of the game (the action). I see no point in challenging eachothers moral view these things, we could raise eyebrows all day long and I doubt it'd do anyone any good. Opinions... I'm still laughing about "Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do." Good times...

You might wonder why I'm talking about anti-masculinity, I might wonder why you're bringing up racial-segregation... It actually ties in fairly nicely with "Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue.", which I do agree with. The problem being that-that seems to be exactly what our actions are achieving on the gender issue. Men aren't doing so well these days and it seems set to get worse.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

edit - Captcha is "bad egg". Even captcha is judging me...

Maybe the "murdering someone's child" comment was a little over the top. My apologies. I just still fail to see how someone could enjoy a story about a hero that murders people in the hundreds without regret. Maybe you could help shine some light on that.

I like to use racial-segregation as a comparison because it has one big thing in common with sexism; Both are negative stereotypes based solely upon a person's appearance. It's the old judging a book by its cover idiotic mentality.

My view of the common man these days, I'm going to really over generalise like crazy here, is that there are very few actual men. Most are whiny babies that feel threatened and have a panic attack when they meet a woman that's a strong willed, free thinker, educated, and/or over 100lbs. That's just too much for their pathetic little minds to handle and they go into a defensive mode to protect their fragile little egos by whatever means necessary.

If men were actually men and could handle a real woman, then I think a lot of this sexist crap would go away. Maybe 'handle' isn't the right word. If men took it as a compliment to themselves that they have a strong woman, instead of being intimidated by her, then things would get better. I know I would much rather have a wife like a tiger then a wife like a hamster.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

Hey, he knew exactly what he was getting into when is showed up in that arena with me! LOL

Ha, a little over the top!? Baby-steps...

I do think that games are about gameplay before story, that's just me... But I can also enjoy a story that centers around questionable, or even completely unquestionably immoral actions from the protagonists. Without intending to spoil anything, breaking-bad would be an example of that. My favourite game series is the Max Payne series, and I do still like Max, despite his murder spree. I just don't think it's necessary for every story to have a protagonist that you route for, I actually like it when that expectation is subverted. You don't emotionally route for them, but it's still a good ride if executed well.

I don't think racial segregation is a good analogy for this at all, sorry, but that's crazy to me. Sexism isn't based on appearance either, I'm pretty sure of this.

The rest is just ranting. You hold modern men in very low regard, wonderful. Is that sexist? I would imagine you think it's not, but I'm fairly certain that if someone was whinging about modern women that would draw a fair few accusations about that persons character.

You seem to have lost focus of the fact that what we're talking about is women(and some men) being frustrated by representations in luxury products that have been primarily made and bought by men since their inception. Which is like racial-segregation because... reasons?

It's not to say there's no room for change or subjective "improvement" of any kind (though changes would have to be supported by a market of willing buyers for what is being sold). It's to say that framing the damn thing in such a hyperbolic way is insanity.

 

[Thr33X]

This is a quotation from a Tumblr account that I follow that pretty much sums it all up:

pretentioushipsterbullshit:

To feminists, a "strong female character" is?. Oh wait, it doesn't exist. Because having a woman in anything is automatically sexist and a tool of the patriarchy.
If she's attractive/sexy she's objectified eye candy.
If she's unattractive she's an unflattering and offensive portrayal of women.
If she can hold her own and kick ass then she's just a man with a vagina.
If she's demure, weak, and/or subservient then she's either a damsel in distress or reinforcing the "stay in the kitchen" mentality.

There?s no winning with these fucks.

To wish for something more, you have to accept what's already in place. Anything done otherwise is not doing any service. By it's very virtue, making a female character that's suddenly this uber-femme, "I don't need a man" type is not liberating, it's in fact alienating...because then you're forcing that onto the consumer as well. The very context of how the problem "NEEDS" to be solved sounds forceful in and of itself. If it's not gonna be handled productively (ie, not pointing fingers and throwing blame out), then it's not going to be handled.

 

[Elate]

I'm not sure if has been mentioned yet (that's a lot of pages to look through) she hasn't even been doing said "research", the majority of her footage has just been lifted off lets players, without their consent, without credit, and without their knowledge.

My two cents? I think she's a massive fraud, I said that from the start. I could put together a better argument than she has and I have no qualifications that she claims to have, what she did was make a massive fuss to accrue interest and publicity, and rode that train to money town.

Having watched bits and pieces of her videos, she explains things like a 15 year old, doesn't substantiate on her points, and instead just points things out, out of context from the actual games (most of which aren't actually what she's claiming them to be.)

 

[DaMullet]

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

You failed already. Publishers don't think women don't play video games, publishers think female leads sell less. Totally different. And what this useless ESA study doesn't tell you is that male gamers in general spend a lot more time and money on VG's. And it's money spent which matters for publishers, not the percentage of who touched a video game.


And the rest is pretty much pointless. Everyone knows there are idiots on the internet. Racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. And because of anonymity they aren't scared to express these heinous feelings.

The thing is, you said "Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson". The reason why Thompson was full of crap was because there was no evidence to support his claim. Maybe one or two people, but they might have gone insane over My Little Pony for all we know.
Finding sexist things in video game culture is easy, you could probably find a dozen new examples every day in a just few minutes.
So how is 'no evidence' the same as 'new evidence every day'?
Let's say for example, in a different world, there was a dozen new reports of violence every day. The crimes were re enactments of video games and when the criminals were caught, they all confessed that they got these ideas from those games. After the crimes hit over a thousand, do you think Thompson would have won then?

Unless you're talking about the quality of her argument. And the problem with her, is that she's the only one willing to weather the shit storm. There's probably 1,000s of better people to make her argument, but we'll never hear from them because of the hostile nature of the gaming culture right now. I'm defending her because of the few things she has gotten right, as well as the hope that she is paving the way for someone better.