From what I've seen nobody is saying whole games are purely sexist - apart from the ones that clearly are. Certainly anyone who is decrying every new title as entirely misogynistic and an attack on women isn't going to be taken too seriously. If you watch Tropes vs. Women in Videogames, the general idea is that there are these tropes, that are inherently sexist, and they show up in viedoegames a lot. They show up in other mediums too, but that doesn't make them okay to be in videogames. Not every use of a generally sexist trope is sexist, but the repeated use of tropes across the gaming industry indicates, at least, boring story telling and predictable character arcs. In short there is nothing artistic or creative about using tropes.
My only problem with the whole feminist thing is that it's so 'female victims' orientated that it gives itself an easy out for anyone who attempts to debate. Most of these tropes are damaging to men and women, simply by forcing them into rigid and opposing roles. So to my mind humanity is misrepresented, and nobody is a victim because it doesn't define how we act in real life. Again, this is all just misrepresentation of how people genuinely act and feel.
Of course game developers are not required to challenge culture and push the boundaries of representation. To my mind the publishers of videogames should not be the direct target of any push for wider representation. Target the consumer, convince the consumer to seek out genuine representation in videogames, to watch out for protagonists who aren't the artistic dead ends of comfortably handsome straight white males. I think the avenue for this would be to identify how the depth of story changes when you are in fact culturally challenged by a more accurate representation of humanity.
Of course, if this turns out to be right, then that's where the money goes, and that's where publishers will push developers, and we'll end up with a natural diversity of characters. Everybody wins.
If that's not what happens, and it turns out that characters are culturally interchangeable and nobody actually gives a toss when it comes down to playing videogames, that won't happen. In this situation, everybody still wins as long as they can recognise themselves as claiming a slice of the pie in the publishers eye worthy of the money they can contribute to future development of games. This actually speaks to your use of the term 'our hobby'. Gaming 'belongs' to people of every different gender, creed, colour and culture.
To surmise this entire post, culture cannot be created by quota's.
My only problem with the whole feminist thing is that it's so 'female victims' orientated that it gives itself an easy out for anyone who attempts to debate. Most of these tropes are damaging to men and women, simply by forcing them into rigid and opposing roles. So to my mind humanity is misrepresented, and nobody is a victim because it doesn't define how we act in real life. Again, this is all just misrepresentation of how people genuinely act and feel.
Of course game developers are not required to challenge culture and push the boundaries of representation. To my mind the publishers of videogames should not be the direct target of any push for wider representation. Target the consumer, convince the consumer to seek out genuine representation in videogames, to watch out for protagonists who aren't the artistic dead ends of comfortably handsome straight white males. I think the avenue for this would be to identify how the depth of story changes when you are in fact culturally challenged by a more accurate representation of humanity.
Of course, if this turns out to be right, then that's where the money goes, and that's where publishers will push developers, and we'll end up with a natural diversity of characters. Everybody wins.
If that's not what happens, and it turns out that characters are culturally interchangeable and nobody actually gives a toss when it comes down to playing videogames, that won't happen. In this situation, everybody still wins as long as they can recognise themselves as claiming a slice of the pie in the publishers eye worthy of the money they can contribute to future development of games. This actually speaks to your use of the term 'our hobby'. Gaming 'belongs' to people of every different gender, creed, colour and culture.
To surmise this entire post, culture cannot be created by quota's.