Alright, after I get done writing my comment here I'll check out MDF and see how it is.
I just wanted to say again on this subject that I feel Jim misses the point entirely. Not many people are concerned that people are going to "take their games away from them" simply that people want games to be an unfettered medium, devoid of political correctness. If you start taking people being offended by things like the "Hitman: Absolution" trailer, or "Riptide" bust of bloody busts seriously, and allow them a platform, that will lead to gaming companies becoming increasingly concerned about who they might offend, rather than in making the best game they can. It's inevitable that this happens when you open the door for the PC movement, so effort is made to shut the door in it's
face rather solidly.
What's more there is the simple point that in many cases it's not even a legitimate point of view from a PC perspective, but someone looking for five minutes of fame at the expense of the games industry. A good example of
this would be the "Hitman: Absolution" trailer, there is nothing even remotely sexist about that. You hear plenty of stuff about how girls aren't given enough screen time to do cool stuff in games, and here you've got a group of over the top, heavily armed, physically ideal women coming out doing the super-villain thing in a campy game and people complain about it and calling it sexist for pretty much being the exact opposite of sexism.
To put things into perspective it's the EXACT opposite of the old stereotype where the guy can't do anything to the female villain, so the love interest/female lead has to engage her in a cat fight, so the hero's integrity can be maintained by not seeing him punch out a girl no matter how tough/brutal/evil she might be. Here we have a situation where a dude comes out and pretty much treats the ladies just like anyone else in his rogues gallery and we get complaints about that too.
That's the problem you see, and why people get all up in the face of issues like that, it's a no win scenario, and that's EXACTLY why the people bringing up the issue for the sake of attention get shut down so hard.
Showing minorities (well those who are minorities in the US if not globally) as bad guys in video games where it's appropriate, tribals as tribals, and similar things likewise are not real issues, someone who actually tries to make a platform out of that is a troublemaker, and a problem themself, rather than someone simply making a statement people don't like and being attacked. The mark of a good troll and attention seeker is to make your comments seem insightful and well thought out, it works far better than just dropping a "this sucks" in all caps and leaving. The bigger the platform you can get, the more you can troll, and if you can actually troll people into change for the lulz so much the better. People like Anita are not heroes who are making relevent observations, but troublemakers who are laughing hysterically, as white knights help them spread their lulz through the internet. Being right isn't important as a troll so much as speaking with conviction, being able to get attention, and keep the chaos going. People have simply gotten smart enough to recognize it and act accordingly.
When it comes to things like Skyrim and that entire contreversy, understand that being promiscious is a big issue today, and was an even bigger deal in ancient times. That said the entire point of Skyrim is in terms of making desicians and deciding which quests you want to do (if any at all), and how to solve them. Complaining that this quest might be considered "sexist" and deserves special mention because of it, in a game where you can engage in mass murder, torture people to find their treasure, and oh yeah... lure people back to a cave to feast on them as a cannibal, is just insane. It's simply an issue because if someone mentions SEXISM it can get one a platform, it doesn't matter if it is, or the context of the events, the in-game society, or the rest of the game and the whole idea of moral choice inherant in it.
Speaking of moral choice one interesting bit about Skyrim is that I think it works better as a moral barometer on some level because it doesn't have some kind of omnipotent bean counter keeping score behind the scenes that is holding your ending hostage for good behavior. While doing all the quests/content for fun is something most people will do, it's interesting to see how many beyond the initial experience and seeing it all will do really depraved things for the sake of personal power, the game is quite beatable without Daedric artifacts for example, but ask yourself sometimes how many people actually play a character for the long term that doesn't collect them (especially the easier ones, which oftentimes involve the nastier acts).
In short if you take Skyrim as a whole, and want to make moral judgements about the game content and how people play, and your choice of target is to pick on the sexism inherant in outing a woman for being promiscious in a game based on an ancient culture, you are either a troll trying to cause trouble based on current politics, or utterly insane to the point where people should be ignoring you anyway.
As a final point, I'll say that the whole "Bust of a bloody bust" from Riptide is attached to an over the top zombie horror game. A genere known for babes, boobs, and blood.... and popular with both men and women incidently. Part of the appeal of this entire genere is that it's so "wrong". Someone who complains about an item like this by definition is someone who is not really a genere fan, and probably doesn't "get it". As a result they are not worthy of having an opinion in dealing with a niche audience and a product directed at it. Complaints about this kind of thing are along the lines of saying "you shouldn't do things like this at all" because nobody was ever saying this was right and normal to begin with (rather reveling in how utterly F@cked up it is). You attack something like this, your basically attacking a whole genere and saying things about the people who like horror movies, zombies, etc... none of who need someone else to tell them the differance between fantasy or reality or that this represents something "wrong". This paticular incident goes beyond video games, to the kind of "moral majority" whack jobs who attack horror movies and such on general principles, and that principle is pretty much that nobody should have, or enjoy, things like this. In short it's so over the top that it's a non-issue for anyone who isn't a proponent of censorship, and thus unworthy of having an opinion on the subject by definition as their point of view violates basic societal principles of expression. When you take this so far as to call it "sexist" that just becomes trolling, getting even more ridiculous than moral censors who can at least argue their convictions, your basically attaching an "ism" for the sake of getting attention. The work is by definition so bloody wrong (which is the appeal) intristically that there is no real way to attack it an these kinds of grounds. To say they "Dead Island Bust" is sexist basically implies that it's wrong because it's a female torso, like it being a guy's bloody torso would make it acceptable... stop and think about that one for a second, as that's exactly what an attack based on sexism implies. What's more when it comes to macabre art, I think it's pretty co-ed to be honest, thisis about attention rather than a valid point because technically to make a legitimate point about this you'd have to prove that there are more items like this involving women than men and that this involves a trend, and to be honest with the dummies I've seen in haunted houses, on sale around Halloween, and similar things, it actually seems co-ed to me, and truthfully I think I've probably seen a lot more displayable mock ups of dead guy parts than those from girls.... something I'd actually think Jim would know since he DOES seem to shop in those kinds of specialty stores going by some of the props he's displayed in his shows. If I remember, maybe I'll actually take count next time one of those halloween seasonal shops opens up and post my findings... I half expect I'll find that the most sexist thing is that we don't have more models of dead women (discrimination! girls can be mutilated and dismembered as easily as guys can!).
