Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[Abnaxis]

Your vested interest in seeing it happen in no way distracts from the fact that you are, to use the terminology of the day "white knighting". You are swooping in to save all those poor oppressed minorities from the evil white male gaming monsters, and are seemingly unconcerned by the fact that they neither want nor need your help. If they wanted the things you are demanding then we'd hear them asking for them. You presuming to speak for them to tell them that they are oppressed and want to play games but cannot because they're too weak to speak up for themselves is frankly insulting.

Who the hell are you to tell me what my motivations are for being here?

See, this right here is indicative of the problem I have with you in this discussion. I have said--EXPLICITLY--that I am not "white knighting," multiple times. To whit:

Justice? It's bloody video games, for fucks sake. No woman is going to waste away in despair because she never got to play Halo

However, you would rather argue with what you assume my position is, rather than actually reading and evaluating what I am actually saying.

The first question is self-evident.

The second is your attempt to shift the burden of proof again (and after I rumbled you once before, too!) and demand that I disprove your baseless hypothesis. You are asserting that people are being kept out of gaming by the race/gender of the protagonists. Prove it.

I'm not trying to shift the burden of proof, I am trying to figure out why you think the question itself is justified. Your position is that I have to prove that changing the protagonist will result in more sales, otherwise the only reasonable course of action is to continue doing things the way they've been done. Why? What is so onerous about changing protagonist demographics, that makes the status quo default?

No, nobody is trying to use them that way, men seem to prefer shooters at a rate women do not, certainly. Women themselves enjoy some activities at a rate that men do not, and this phenomenon is irrelevant. It is certainly not to be "corrected" by social justioce warriors.

YOU might not be, but I was replying to uanime, who was saying we could test genetics and attach electrodes to brains and determine scientifically that men are born biologically more inclined toward shooters than women. We can't actually do that, the geneticists specifically say the science doesn't support it.

And again, "justice" doesn't enter into it. I am trying to improve the hobby, not win any battles for justice.

Once again, I have no idea and no interest in whether men inherently enjoy shooters or not, what I am concerned with is the fact that you can offer no proof that changing the gender of the protagonist will suddenly make women enjoy them, and that as a result any course of action based on this faulty logic must be resisted because it is clearly wrong.

The second part is funny because you're trying to handwave away the fatal flaw in your argument and it isn't working.
If the gender of the protagonist is enough to dissuade women from playing, then it must be enough to dissuade men from playing as well, and that means that you are arguing that developers risk millions of dollars purely on your feelings crusade.
If the gender isn't enough to dissuade women from playing then your argument fails at the starting block because it's based on a false premise.
Either way it most assuredly fails, and I think that at this stage you're only repeating it because you genuinely can't think of a better argument and don't want to drop the crusade because fighting for it makes you feel like one of the enlightened and allows you to justify the beliefe that you're not like other men, or other white people.

Alright, I've been arguing with you on the grounds that the logic you are trying to apply does not work, ever. But let me put this in more concrete terms.

I have been part of a team that designs mechanical products, including the paint job. At the company I used to work at, they've been making these things for literally more than a century. Every ten years or so, they change the color on them.

You know how much they worry about their current customers, when they make these changes? Not at all. Because they're already customers--they don't give a shit whether their widget is slate gray or granite gray, they've already committed decades to learning how it works and how to install it. As long as it still works the same, they couldn't care.

The company has never lost a customer when they change the color of their product, but they have seen sales increase every time. Because when they change the color, the product stands out more on the shelf, and ignorant customers--the ones who know nothing about the quality of the product or how it works--notice it on the shelf and pick it up. And, over time, a proportion of those new customers learn the ins and outs and become old customers with brand loyalty, who don't give a fuck what color they make it.

What we're talking about here is the same thing. Putting a chick on the front cover is not going to make men run for the hills. They've already committed hundreds to thousands of hours to mastering shooter mechanics, as long as the gameplay is fun and the story is passable, they couldn't give less of a fuck about what paint job we put on it. Pretty much everyone but apparently publishers has known this for years, that's why you hear things like "graphics don't mater as much as gameplay".

However, to the people that don't play shooters already, that haven't committed any time on mastery or built any brand loyalty, that box art could make all the difference in the world. I can't tell you how many games I haven't picked up until years after it came out--at which point I thoroughly enjoyed it at a deep discount/cost to the publisher--because I don't spend all my free time watching let's plays, reviews are useless, and the cover didn't match the contents. That's why changing protagonists can bring non-whites, non-males in without alienating white males--because the two groups are, in fact, different, and approach the hobby from different perspectives.

It leads me to ask this question:
Does it ever work? I mean, does it really get you what you're looking for?

It seems I've been dragged into responding to an argument that can be summed up as "feelings" again. Although I shouldn't be surprised really as it's the same bad argument you've been making for pages now.

I feel like Winston Smith thinking about the war with Eurasia Eastasia Eurasia you get the idea.

I dunno if it gets me what I'm looking for. In fact, I can go farther, and say that even if every publisher threw their weight behind diverse protagonists today, we won't know if it makes any difference for a very long time because of market momentum and intransigent public perception. By the same token, I couldn't have told you whether or not the Curiosity was going to land on Mars before it did so, and there's nobody alive who could tell tell you for certain what alternative rover design could have landed on Mars better (though there undoubtedly is one).

That's the way problem solving works. You observe something that could be improved, you hypothesize possible methods of improvement, and you (ideally) pick the one with the lowest costs and highest likelihood of success, with no absolute guarantee that it will work. In fact, if you're smart, you should expect that it won't work exactly as you intend.

Increasing protagonist diversity is one of many possible actions which may or may not result in a more diverse gaming audience. From what I know about marketing, it seems plausible, and at the same time the switch itself carries virtually zero cost. It's not the only possible way to increase diversity, it's not guaranteed to increase diversity, but if it does we're all better off.

 

[Abnaxis]

Once agin, you've provided no evidence whatsoever that changing the race/gender of the protagonist will attract more players, and you have no argument against the possibility of it pushing away existing players either which it would have to if it was enough of a factor to attract new ones.
It's still the same bad argument over and over again.
Your analogy is poor and irrelevant because, as you put it "they don't give a shit whether their widget is slate gray or granite gray".
You have stated that the paint job makes no difference to the product, it is an irrelevant part of the design.
The protagonist is not a irrelevant part of the design of the game, therefore your anology does not hold water.

Of course the protagonist isn't irrelevant, I never said it was. However, as far as people who are already dedicated to gaming are concerned, the demographics of the protagonist is of minimal concern, with compared to the quality of the gameplay or the narrative. As long as the protagonists has character, we generally don't care whether it's a man, a woman, or an alien.

This relates to my analogy, as the loyal customers care whether we make the case out of aluminum or steel, regardless of whether it's blue or green. In both cases, we're talking about the case the product is made in, just different aspects of it.

You, yourself, have shown support for this idea. You said you don't care whether the protagonists are British are not, even though you yourself are British. Correct me if I'm characterizing you wrong, but I take that to mean you care more about the quality of the writing and the enjoyability of the gameplay mechanics, right?

People who are not already shooting enthusiasts--i.e., the people I want to attract, and the people marketers are paid to care about and focus on--don't know the first thing about what makes a good shooter and what makes a bad one, because they don't have the experience. Superficial considerations--like what gender the protagonist is--are going to have a much bigger effect on those people, because they aren't as well equipped to to make in-depth judgements.

We're still at "I know this is a problem because feelings, and I know this is the solution because feelings".
That's fine for you to hold as a personal opinion, but you don't have anything to back it up whatsoever, and as a result you have no right to insist that other people gamble their own money on the back of your feelings.

Once again, if this were a request rather than a demand, I'd happily agree with it as being something that'd be nice to see (like TIE Figher HD).
Where you fail is in making it a demand when you can't back it up.

Once again, you are projecting what you think my argument is, rather than actually reading what I am saying. I have never demanded anything. All I have done, is make a case for why it would be better to have more diverse protagonists, as it relates to the original topic. Additionally, in no way have I advocated spending more money than is already being spent--in fact, I called Jim out for BS because he was trivializing the cost of adding a whole new protagonist to Assassin's Creed.

What I have said is that, given the fact that publishers are already going to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into yearly releases, it is in my best interest and their best interest to widen their sights a bit, rather than maintaining the laser-like focus on the 18-35 white male demographic as they've done. Releasing a lineup with more diverse protagonists is one of many, many possible ways to do that.

 

[Abnaxis]

So what. I didn't say that there wasn't any overlap between biology, chemistry, and physics; just that they weren't the same thing. For example evolution isn't covered in chemistry or physics because neither deal with living things.

What exactly are these "Laws of electricity" and how do they limit programmers? Once you've created a programmer that can be used to write code then any further understanding of electricity isn't going to have any effect on the programmer.

The problem with your analogy is that the laws of physics are wholly inadequate to explain almost everything that occurs in biology. Just because physicists don't understand everything about thermodynamics doesn't mean that biologists can't figure out how animals cool themselves down.

So your claim that describing all science as the laws of physics is still incorrect.

As a for instance, Ohm's law (in a very rough sense) determines how much heat is generated by a CPU that runs at X volts and draws Y current whenever a bit is flipped, which determines how much energy is required to run Z operations under expected cooling conditions, which determines how many calculations can be run in each second on each core of a multiprocessor video card, which determines how much a graphics programmer can simulate advanced lighting effects.

More broadly, the ultimate limit on processing speed, which fundamentally limits what any programmer can do with software, is limited by the laws of electrical power and the propagation speed of electromagnetic waves in semiconductors. Programmers rely on engineers to work within these constraints to give them the fastest processing hardware allowed by our understanding of electricity.

Well there was a German study in which people were categories into ?non-players?, ?action-and-simulation game players? and ?logic-and-skill-training game players?. Men made up 81.7% of the ?action-and-simulation game players", while women were the majority in the other two groups.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886905002813

That looks like an interesting study. I wish I had access to the full work so I could investigate their methodology more.

This result has been replicates in other studies, though it's no surprise that men and women like different games when they have differently structured brains.

This, right here, is where you start to go off the rails of what science supports. You are drawing lines of causation, implying that men are inclined toward action games because they are men. You don't know why men are more inclined toward action games, nor do you even know definitively why mens' brains are structured differently (that's not to say we don't know the mechanisms by which brain structure is formed, but rather that there are multiple possible mechanisms that form brain structure and we can't say which one is the dominant determinant for every variation in the brain). You only know that men categorically tend toward liking action games, there's no evidence showing why that happens.

So what. As I stated if women wanted to play these games they would buy the one they disliked the least. The fact that they're not buying any of these games indicates that they don't like these games.

A few years ago, I learned something about myself. I learned that I like wine. I had only tried a couple of cheap, boxed wines before, and had come to the conclusion that it tasted like kerosene and never wanted to do it again. Then I got a free complementary wine tasting with some tour, figured "what the hell," and really liked it. Now I keep on the lookout for new and interesting wines to try.

By your logic, the fact that I wasn't buying wine before the tour constituted conclusive proof that I don't like wine. That conclusion would have been wrong, for the exact same reason that assuming women don't like shooters because they aren't buying the least odious shooters is wrong--it assumes that consumers have full knowledge of the merits of a product, regardless of whether they've actually had a chance to fully experience that product.

Also, more generally, the idea you put forward is a textbook case of incorrectly drawing conclusions about causation based on correlations. Just because women don't buy shooters, does not mean you have adequate evidence to show that their purchasing behavior is guided by them not liking shooter mechanics.

So you're now saying that women may buy games even if they're not marketed to them.

First, I never said that there aren't some women buy and play games, regardless of marketing. I said that marketing has a tendency to discourage women more than men.

Second, the point that I was making is that marketing is not the only thing that matters to the final sales numbers for games. Time of year also matters--the sales numbers in December are not the same as in July, plus the effect of how long it's been since the current generation of consoles was released. Cultural context matters--in aggregate, people in Germany have a different cultural conception of violence than people in Japan do. Recent events matter--for good or for ill, Doom got a lot more attention after the Columbine shooting, and that affected sales volumes. And all of that is before you even consider the qualities of the game itself, like how fun it is to play, what sort of visual design its graphics employ, how much hype it received among reviewers, etc. etc.

All of these things introduce error into your data. They are what is refereed to as Confounding Variables [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding], and they each multiply the amount of data you need to find a statistically significant conclusion about the variable--for instance, protagonist gender--you actually care about.

Actually it's easier to determine what men and women like that you claim. All you need to do is create a game with several different protagonists and have people rate how much they like each protagonist. In this test all the variables exception the protagonist are the same, so it's easy to determine what effect the protagonist has on this game's popularity.

This would actually cost a prohibitively large amount of money to do correctly. First, you need an unbiased sample of adequate size and representation so you could generalize it to the population at large, otherwise your results won't answer the question you're seeking to determine. That means gathering thousands of people from different geographic locations, different socio-economic statuses, different races, and different nationalities. Further, you also need a wide, varied selection of games that is representative of what is available in the market of study, each with a "male" and "female" version. In many cases, this cannot be accomplished by simply switching out the main character model--there are a LOT of scenes in Tomb Raider, for example, that just would not work if you put no more effort into it than making Lara's model a male.

Once you're done, having spent hundreds of millions to billions of dollars on your study, you might be able to make the claim that women are less inclined toward AAA games than men are, though you still haven't done anything to figure out whether that's just because women naturally don't like AAA game design, or whether there was a pre-existing notion in their heads that they wouldn't like it because of the current state of AAA marketing, which could be changed if publishers switched gears.

Just because you consider everyone working on a video game to be an artist doesn't make them an artist. Especially not the writers.

Also these people still don't have any control over anything that will be decided by the publisher or the developer.

What is your point? As long as the publishers and developers find male protagonists easier to make games about than female protagonists it doesn't matter what all the other want to do.

So...I guess you don't consider a novel as a work of art? As in, a thing created as an artist, which is defined as "a person who creates art"? Whatever, semantics.

My point is that, no matter what you do, there is financial cost incurred by the way game developing is structured. Publishers hand down their requirements to teams of people who implement them regardless of whether they are comfortable or familiar with the context they are creating for. It doesn't matter if you writer is atheist, they have to write a theist character if the publisher decrees that the main character must be theist. That incurs extra cost, which is unavoidable given the size of the teams.

Therefore, arguing that publishers incur extra cost if they hand down the requirement that the protagonist must be female, doesn't hold a lot of water. No matter what, publishers will have to pay a price for coordinating the various creative teams no matter what mandate they set. There will be a slight difference in cost, especially among the writers, because by and large those teams are made up of men that will be less comfortable creating women characters, but the actual marginal cost of one option versus the other is someone on the order of the margin of error in the accounts payable department.

Again what is your point? The fact that there's other things that are more expensive that a female protagonist doesn't change the fact that a female protagonist will still be more difficult to write than a male one. Why would anyone spend any extra money on female protagonist when it won't result in them getting more money?

Why would I provide you with any other this information when it has nothing to do with my argument? Perhaps you should provide evidence of your claim that a female protagonist will cost the same to create than a male one and be just as easy to create a game for.

My point is that changing the protagonist, from a risk/reward standpoint, is not a big deal when compared to the dozens of other risks that are involved every time a publisher commits to make a game. Publishers are all too happy to dunk tens of millions of dollars worth of investment into advanced lighting and texturing technology, with no guarantee of attracting more customers, so by what justification can you make the argument that the thousands of dollars in extra cost it would take to create a female protagonist is somehow prohibitively expensive?

Just one problem, I never claimed this. I said that we could test what men and women liked by asking men and women what they liked, not using DNA testing or scanning their brains.

Though I did say that as men preferred hunting and shooters it was likely that men had a genetic disposition to these games.

You also failed to provide any evidence regarding what the geneticists said on this issue.

You, earlier:

You could also test this by asking men and women about the games they enjoy, examining male and female brains to see what they enjoy, or even see what people enjoy in a non-game environment (such as how many hunter are male).

You seem to have no understanding of science. Scientific investigation has found that people with low levels of dopamine are more prone to being thrill seekers because it's they only way they can stimulate dopamine production. It's entirely possible that men enjoy playing shooters or hunting for a similar reason.

You ignored that people who enjoy shooters could have their DNA tested to see if there's a genetic reason why some people prefer shooters to RPGs.

You also ignored that more men enjoy hunting that women because it doesn't fit with your argument that marketing is the sole reason why women don't buy as many shooters as men.

The way scientists "examine male and female brains to see what they enjoy," is they scan them, and watch how the brain reacts when the people play games.

Here's a paper by a geneticist that explains why you'll never find a "video game playing" gene sequence. [http://musicoflife.co.uk/pdfs/GenesandCausation.pdf] Also, it goes into great detail as to why the environment plays a significant role in genetics.

As far as hunting goes, there's a far, far cry difference between hunting and playing a shooting game. I'm sure you can run statistics and find a correlation between the two behaviors, but--once again--that is not evidence for any particular root cause between the two of them, biological or otherwise, it only says that there IS a shared factor.

 

[danon]

Very rarely checking in on this site anymore. Good to see that Jim is doing the same old though.

 

[Silvanus]

It's a symptom of people wanting gaming to be seen as a "grown-up" pasttime, rather than a child's indulgence as it has been. Many people seem to think that gaming will be taken seriously as a medium if it is seen to be "progressive" enough.

Wait. Why should video games be held to a lower standard than other media, exactly?

I don't think anybody here would genuinely argue that video games are solely "children's indulgences" any more, so I'm not sure why it would be a good thing to hold them to that standard.

 

[FriendlyFyre]

The worst thing about all this, is there are real feminist issues in the world, and reasonable feminist activists trying to make real progress, and all this manufactured controversy serves to do is paint them with a broad stroke as silly, and ridiculously demanding.

Does the word Feminazi sound familiar? because this kinda crap is the reason that degrading term exists.

No, that term was coined by Rush Limbaugh, and as such I think we should shun it whenever it makes an appearance.

 

[Silvanus]

A lower standard than other media? Uh, no. What would be the likelihood of outrage if a film about the French Revolution had a white male lead character?

The AC debacle is just a useful distraction here. It does not represent the entire diversity debate, or even a particularly significant episode of it.

Films may feature straight white men as the vast majority of protagonists, but they still feature more diversity than video game characters (by far).

Although you're right that nobody here would call games a children's indulgence, you'll find plenty in wider society who would (although less and less as the medium becomes more mainstream), and what better way to head off that accusation than to tackle Grown-Up Issues, right? Unfortunately the call to tackle grown-up issues is being made by people with, shall we say, a significantly less than grown-up understanding of the issues.

You haven't really well understood where I'm coming from, so I'm less inclined to accept that characterisation of their point of view.

Regardless, I don't really see the relevance of who made "the call". Improving the range of the medium is a better course than steering clear of mature themes.

 

[Silvanus]

That isn't the important difference though, especially given that the film industry produces vastly more movies than the games industry does games. The important difference is that when a film about the French Revolution is announced to have a white male lead character, you don't see the entire conversation dominated by SJWs hysterically screeching about patriarchy.

Firstly, this is pretty absurd hyperbole, now. Those saying there's no problem with the latest AC seem to vastly outnumber those complaining, from what I've seen.

Secondly, as I said before, this tangent is a useful distraction. It does not represent the debate. I have no wish to focus on a single, unrepresentative example.

I understand exactly where you're coming from, I just don't agree with you.
Addressing mature themes is fine, it's even laudable in some cases. When doing so, however, you should ensure that you actually have a mature understanding of the issues involved, and are not simply trying to appear as if you do because it's seen as the "in thing" currently.

This just sounds like a fairly easy method to take the intellectual high ground without actually addressing the issue under discussion.

We're talking about video games (or we should be), not our perceptions of the people arguing either side. We should be able to have our own discussion about themes and representation independently.

 

[Silvanus]

Not really, the majority of voices by volume may be sane ones, but the most heard ones are defintitely the SJW voices as they are shouting the loudest and seem to be reflected by the gaming "press".
What I'd like to know is why this doesn't represent the debate? It seems like a perfectly representative example, and I'm suspicious that you're just trying to handwave away an uncomfortable problem, so please explain.

Firstly, because a great number of people who want greater diversity see no problem with the AC franchise-- such as myself (from what I can tell, the AC franchise has had a very diverse cast overall). Secondly, because that particular debacle focused more on historical accuracy than most others. And, finally and most importantly, because no single example represents the entire debate.

I have addressed the issue at length in this thread already and have not seen anything even close to an adequate counterpoint. If you have one to make then I'd genuinely like to hear it.
The reason that I'm more interested in the motivations of the people arguing the other side (kind of, my view doesn't really fit either "side") is simple:
They've advanced no good reason for their demands and no backup for their assertions, and yet they are still making them.
This makes me wonder if the issue is ideological in nature, and if so what has led this ideology to be accepted.

Whether or not you've addressed it at length earlier in the thread, or in the past, the focus on the people rather than the point is still an ad hominem.

I'll mention a few of my own reasons, though, if you're interested. Firstly, I'd say that there's a wealth of evidence in literature and film that art forms benefit from presenting their audience with a wider range (of characters, of storylines, of themes). Characters of different backgrounds allow the art forms to explore differing experiences and different characterisation.

Some of the most seminal works have explored themes and experiences that were made possible by the characters' experiences, which are deeply linked to their diverse backgrounds. Think of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, and The Colour Purple, and The City and the Pillar, and Delores Claiborne, and The Merchant of Venice, and even Magneto of the X-Men. We've been given some fantastic characters. Had we simply folded our collective arms, and said that we just don't need any of these minorities in our literature, we would have seriously damaged the art.

I should also mention that sometimes, it's nice to be able to play a character (or read a character, or see a character on television) who is like you. Many people get to experience that all the time. Others don't.

 

[Silvanus]

Actually literature and film tend to suffer if they present their audience with a wider range of characters, storylines, and themes because the story becomes convoluted and difficult to understand. An example is Game of Thrones which has a huge range of characters but most people can only remember who a few of the characters are.

Let's not forget that unless these books and films appeal to the general public they won't sell, so exploring differing experiences and different characterisation often leads to things that lack an audience.

A Song of Ice and Fire is an example of a series with a huge number of characters, period. There is relatively little racial diversity (as it's based on historical England/ Europe to some degree), and only a smattering of non-straight characters (among a cast of hundreds upon hundreds), most of whose sexualities are only alluded to.

Most people remember who the salient characters are. It is also wildly popular.

Of the stories you mentioned I'd only heard of Delores Claiborne (written by Stephen King), The Merchant of Venice (written by Shakespeare), and Magneto (I watched cartoons he was in). So of these books the only two I've heard of were written by famous authors who just happened to write about something you thought was interesting.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit: story about the life of a lesbian.
The Color Purple: black woman experiences racism.
The City and the Pillar: story about the life of a male homosexual.
Dolores Claiborne: woman kills her husband for molesting her daughter.
The Merchant of Venice: Jew lends money to a Christian. Jew gets tricked out of his money, a pound of flesh, and is forced to become a Christian.
Magneto: depending on the time period his wife and children/mother and father died during the holocaust, and he wants to kill/subjugate all non-mutants.

How exactly did any of these stories change anything? Did they even sell well because of their topics?

My point was made quite simply in my previous post-- that they were compelling narratives and compelling examples of characterisation, deeply connected to the backgrounds of their characters.

Whether you've heard of them or not is irrelevant. Each is tremendously well-known, and they are (quite obviously) not the sole examples.

How exactly would art have been damaged without these characters? Would the world really be any worse off if Dolores Claiborne had been another story about the supernatural, such as Bag of Bones?

It would be worse off if we made art forms more and more homogeneous, yes. Why would you want less choice in art?

Similarly, the world would be worse off if, instead of all his Science Fiction contributions, Asimov had elected instead to simply write 'Lord of the Rings' again. And, too, had Philip K. Dick chosen that rather than creating mind-bending alternate-reality fiction, he should simply write 'Lord of the Rings' for a third time. And, following that, had Neil Gaiman and Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolfe come to a joint decision that their talents would be better spent producing three more re-writes of 'Lord of the Rings'.

I fail to see how anybody could see innovation as a bad thing in art.

That's because some characters don't work well on TV or other mediums. The character who pays attention in school and in the evening does his homework will always be less usable than the class clown who has wacky adventures. The character who's gay won't be interesting if being gay is his only characteristic.

Who said anything about his sexuality being his "only characteristic"? This is just an attempt to shift the debate.

 

[Silvanus]

The Dothraki are based on the Mongols, while all the Free Cities Daenerys visits are based on the Middle East. So this is racial diversity.

Well, not really-- they're far from directly analogous. Plus, of course, Daenerys' arc is one amongst a huge number, and the protagonist of it is still of the western, "European" type.

I wouldn't describe any of these stories as being tremendously well-known as they're not Harry Potter, Twilight, or Lord of the Rings famous. While some people may have heard of these stories it's unlikely that most people know what any of these stories are about or why the characters are meant to be compelling.

Very few things are Harry Potter, Twilight, or Lord-of-the-Rings. If you want to set that particular (arbitrary) measure, you'll be discounting almost all literature and film, including the extremely-influential. Hell, you'll be discounting the entirety of theatre and poetry.

You'd also be discounting most of video-gaming, aside from CoD and a handful of others.

How would we be worse off it art was more homogeneous? The fact that the same types of stories remain popular while "original" ideas are ignored indicates that people do not want diversity, they want more of what they enjoy.

You're aware that films other than Transformers attract critical acclaim and popularity, of course. If you genuinely believe art and creativity thrive in an atmosphere which discourages difference, then... I'm not going to pursue that line, I'm afraid.

Asimov's contribution was thinking about what it meant to be human, so if he chose to write 'Lord of the Rings' it would be much the same issues except with orcs instead of robots....

Well if you replace defeating the Authority with defeating Sauron and setting the story in a world ruled by the followers of Sauron ......

The Franz Kafka Lord of the Rings could be good. The story of a hobbit trying to survive Sauron's bureaucracy.

Pretty amusing ideas, I must admit, but entirely missing the point. You've even been describing each writer giving a unique insight and focusing on different themes and facets-- that would be innovative.

Since when has innovation involved writing stories that most people don't want to read. Surely it's only innovation if you create something that most people find interesting.

Those examples I mentioned were not things that nobody read. They attracted audiences-- some of them considerable ones... but why does it matter? What's wrong with creating art to be enjoyed by non-massive audiences? What's wrong with catering to a group that isn't the majority, since the majority has so damn much already?

I fail to see why it's "only innovation" if it's super-popular. That simply doesn't seem to follow.

Your attempts to ignore my point is shifting the debate. I'm saying that a character needs to be more than gay in order to be interesting. After all no one would find a story interesting if the protagonist's only characteristic was being straight, yet some people seem to believe that as long as there's a gay person in the story it doesn't matter if the gay character is uninteresting.

Nobody is arguing that a character's only trait should be his/her sexuality. I have seen nobody make the argument you just described.

 

[Silvanus]

The Seven Kingdoms aren't directly analogues with Europe either, so by your logic there aren't any European cultures either. The Dothraki are as close to the Mongols as the Seven Kingdoms are to Europeans. The Free Cities are also very close to the Middle East as they has warrior eunuchs and openly sold slaves.

So your initial point that Game of Thrones was only about Europeans is still incorrect.

Well, your mileage may vary. The Mongols and the Dothraki are both raiding, warrior-societies, but that's about where the similarities end. The Dothraki have no government of note, unlike the Mongols; their religion and attitudes are miles apart.

That aside, remember, I never said it was only about Europeans, but primarily. Even when the focus is on Essos, the protagonists of those sections are still of the Western, European equivalent.

Your claim that all the works you mentioned were well tremendously well known is still wrong.

They were read by hundreds of thousands, millions of people.

Being as popular as Harry Potter is a fairly useless gauge.

What is your point? You've still failed to explain why diversity is important when people have clearly shown that they do not want more diversity.

People have not shown that. Just because a piece of art does not sell as well as the very largest examples (those you mentioned) does not mean it doesn't attract an audience. To say that, because Theatre does not sell as well as Film indicates that "people have clearly shown that they do not want" theatre is... well, patently absurd.

I never claimed that nobody read your examples, just that they weren't popular with the average person. Also the only one that attracted considerable audience was Merchant of Venice, a story that doesn't deal with any issues and has had over 400 years to find its audience.

"Doesn't deal with any issues"?! Have you even read it?

There are audiences other than the "average" consumer. Hundreds of thousands and millions. Not everything must be marketed solely to the majority to be a success.

Well for one it indicates that what you're writing about isn't important, that's why so few people care about it.

An innovation is a better way of doing something. So the fact that something isn't super-popular indicates that's it's not an innovation because if it was people would want to read/watch/copy it.

"Not super-popular" does not equal "so few". It still spans huge numbers of people. Just because it isn't important to you means bugger all; I daresay that if you value repetition and a lack of creativity in your art, then I'm going to consider your art to be pretty damn uninteresting, too. Hell, even those who watch Transformers and read Twilight often occasionally watch/ read better fare.

Still using "super popularity" as the only measure of success.

Care to name some of the traits the gay/lesbian character have in your examples possess and examples of when they demonstrated these traits. If you can't then you're praising works where the protagonist's main trait is being homosexual.

That's a pretty reductionist question, seeing as only two of the examples I gave actually featured gay/lesbian characters.

Anyway, to reply; the protagonist of TCaTP exhibits... an inability to emotionally relate; disillusionment with those he perceives as vacuous, particularly his family and the partners he meets; intelligence and strength of will, but a certain incapability to self-evaluate; reclusiveness; emotional immaturity, leading to his fixatedness. Some, but not all, of these traits are connected with his experience as a gay man interacting with a society that encourages denial.

Why would you assume that a work that you've never actually read provides characters whose only traits are their sexuality? You have literally no experience of the work.

 

[Silvanus]

What government did the Mongols have? Genghis Khan became their leader because he defeated other chieftains, not because he was a king or was elected.

The Mongol and Dothraki attitudes are also similar as they went around raiding cities.

Sort of. The Dothraki are mentioned to set up their camps by the Slaver or Free Cities and receive money to leave, but the Mongols took part in protracted sieges, which the Dothraki never did. They have no siege weaponry or anything of the sort.

As for government, the Mongols instituted laws, taxes, trade routes, local governing bodies. The Dothraki would never dream of any of that.

You have repeatedly failed to provide any evidence to back up this claim. Do you have any figures showing that any book other than Merchant of Venice sold millions of copies (Merchant of Venice is discounted due to it having 400 years to sell book and being required reading for some GCSE students).

I'll do my best, though remember that exact sales figures are privileged data. The Colour Purple has sold five million [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview23], and been translated into 25 languages. Dolores Claiborne attained 1.5 million [http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/11/the-great-stephen-king-reread-dolores-claiborne] on its first printing alone-- it reached number one [http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_t.htm] on the New York Times Best-Seller list. Try as I might, I can't find sales information on the others. As I mentioned, it's privileged information.

Books far lesser known than they routinely sell in the hundreds-of-thousands.

It does however prove that the majority of people don't want this piece of art. So you're still wrong.

Never in all of history have the majority of people read/watched/played a piece of art. By that reasoning, there should be none at all.

Given that people going to theatre has been in decline while people buying films is rising people have clearly shown that they prefer films to theatres. It would also be accurate to say that the majority of people do not want to go to theatres to explain why so few go to theatres.

No, it shows that more people prefer film to theatre. Theatre still pulls millions upon millions of people, and makes billions of pounds. If you're after a purely material justification, that should suffice. They make money.

Care to name some of these issues. If you can't then this proves my point that it doesn't deal with any issues.

One good speech by Shylock does not mean the entire play is about issues of any real importance.

It doesn't prove a damn thing. Anybody who has any experience of the play knows it deals with "issues". My refusal to engage with this tangent indicates only that it would be pointless for both of us.

Yet again you claim that these audiences exist, yet you've never been able to prove it. Care to back up your claim by naming some successful works that appeal to millions but somehow haven't appealed to the majority.

My "claim"? It should be obvious. Look at this [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm?page=7&p=.htm], the 601st-700th best-grossing films. None of them appealing to "the majority". All of them drawing an audience of millions.

To go back to the Theatre example; Theatre has never appealed to "the majority", yet The Lion King has drawn 70 million [http://www.thelionking.co.uk/about-the-show/]. The Book of Mormon brings in £19 million a month [http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2013/01/14/book-of-mormon-brings-in-19-million-per-month/].

Then there are video games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games]. Games such as Brain Age 2 and Namco Museum-- which do not appeal to the "majority"-- sold well over a million.

I'll remind you again that no piece of art has ever appealed to "the majority". A single piece of art has never appealed to 51% of people.

Can you relate these traits more to the story, for example in Welcome to the NHK the protagonist (Satou) is shown to be reclusive as they're a hikimori (shut-in) who spends most of the anime in their room and they only talk to a small group of people. A sentence about the main traits and when they're shown in the story will be sufficient.

That's fair, okay. He exhibits his disillusionment and cynicism when he's dragged to various actor-parties in the second half of the novel, and dwells more and more on the falseness of those around him. It seems a fair response; they do seem false. It stands in contrast to his expectations and naivete nearer the beginning (expecting to be able to meet up and pick up where he left off with the man he spent a single night with as a teenager, for example).

His withdrawed nature is shown throughout the novel, really; it describes his thoughts often, but he speaks relatively little in social situations. This is somewhat linked to his sexuality-- he's an intelligent, athletic man with every reason to be outgoing, but seems to have withdrawn as a result of being unable to explain or relate to his parents, who have traditional expectations of him.

My experience with token characters in other works leads me to be sceptical of other works. Quite often authors will try to disguise a weak story by pretending that it's about an issue simply because the protagonist is in a minority.

I said nothing about "token" characters. Diversity does not automatically mean tokenism.

 

[Silvanus]

The Mongols only did this in regions that they conquered that already had these systems in place. So while the Mongol made laws, taxes, and trade routes in Persia they couldn't implement these as easily in the Eurasian steppe. Once the Mongol empire collapsed and all the tribes went back to self rule the Mongols couldn't implement any of these things.

Yes, I'd say that's quite accurate. It all fell away in their absence (though the same could be said of numerous invaders and their proxy-governments). Nevertheless, they aimed to conquer and to rule. The Dothraki did not.

While these books have sold well as there are books that have sold many time more copies I wouldn't describe them as being some of the most famous books ever written.

What? Neither would I. My point all along has been that that doesn't always matter, and creating the new Twilight doesn't have to be every creator's goal.

Famous books are those that are read by the majority of people who read books, famous movies are those watched by the majority of people who watch movies. The things you listed are neither which is why the majority is not interested in them.

That's moving the goalposts from "majority", to "majority of people who take part in the media". Even so, my point stands. Twilight was not read by the majority of people who read books; neither was Harry Potter, or LOTR. No book has captured 51% of prospective book-readers.

I doubt that theatres make billions of pounds. Movies can make millions in their opening week, theatres cannot.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lion-king-is-broadways-first-648455

It can, but yes, it's rarer. Note also that the Lion King took £2.7 million [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King#Reception] in its first weekend.

The others mentioned here [http://www.newyork.com/articles/broadway/broadways-top-five-grossing-shows-of-all-time-63258/] have also grossed well into the hundreds-of-millions. The estimated worldwide [http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/the-show/facts-figures] gross for Phantom is in the billions.

Nevertheless, it shouldn't matter. Why is millions upon millions not good enough to justify the existence of a piece of art-- if profit is the only compelling reason?

Also regarding material justification those that make the most money are considered the best. So if a theatre show makes £50 million and a movie of the same play makes £500 million the film wins because it made more money (mainly because people prefer to invest in something that will make £500 million than £50 million).

"Wins"? According to whom? Transformers is generally not considered better than Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life, but either way, it's not a competition. Some people enjoy creating art on its merit.

Your inability to name any of these issues simply reinforces my position that it doesn't deal with any issues. This story isn't about how badly the Jews were treated, it's about Christians who trick a Jew out of the money he lent them.

You'll need better bait.

You've also strayed from your original point. You originally claimed that there was an audience for stories about issues, now you're claiming that some of the lesser known films sold millions of copies. If these films and shows you used as examples are generic films and show then they reinforce my point that people don't want diversity and they're happy with people producing the same types of things they previously enjoyed.

I brought those examples up specifically because you opined that media could not sell millions while not appealing to the majority.

I have already provided evidence that Dolores Claiborne and The Colour Purple sold well over a million, and appeared on the NYT best-seller list. If you take a look through the Wiki's list of high-grossing films, you'll notice that the films are not all carbon-copies of one another; they include diverse examples.

Okay thanks.

I've enjoyed this little oasis of civility, anyway.

 

[Silvanus]

You claimed these books were tremendously popular yet had trouble determining just how popular they were.

Right. What does this have to do with whether or not we would describe them as "the most famous books ever written"? That was the absurdly high standard you set.

It's a reasonable definition of majority as it prevents you from saying that no book appeals to the majority because the majority of people don't read books. I didn't further subdivide it into genres because you could do the same thing and end up with a majority in a niche genre for pretty much any book.

Since it's difficult to determine how many people make up any of these groups, it's also difficult to determine how large the majority will be I'll have to concede this point to you as I can't prove the majority of readers likes any of these books. So while I can prove that 2.7 million people in the UK bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I can't prove that the total number of people who read books in the UK is less than 5.4 million.

...Would you seriously believe it is? In a country of 63 million people?

You would have to start imposing more arbitrary limits-- counting only people who read a certain amount, for example-- for this to be any kind of workable standard.

However I can prove that a larger minority likes Harry Potter than they do other types of books.

Indeed; and, as has been my point from the beginning, being the absolute single best-selling thing ever is not every creator's ambition, and nor should it be. We could take that road to its logical conclusion and discount every piece of art except the single example that sells the best.

Well when people are deciding which play to put on they choose the one that will make the most profit. So plays like Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserable, and Cats that have a long track record of making money are more likely to be chosen then other plays that don't make as much money (which is why the same plays keep being performed until everyone is sick of them). Of course there are other considerations such as the costumes and the props available so a theatre group may not be able to perform some plays but they'll very likely to chose the most profitable play out of all the ones they can perform.

Let's face it Ragtime (which was about racial issues) was expected to win most several Tony awards until Lion King came out, made more money, and won best musical at the Tony awards (Lion King won in 6/11 categories, Rag Time won 4/13). As a result Lion King has had more revivals than Ragtime. So making large amounts of money does affect how often something is performed.

I don't think anybody disputed whether or not making money resulted in longer-running shows. Remember, I originally brought up the theatre example because if we followed the rationale of discounting anything that is less profitable than something else, then theatre would not exist-- even though it can make millions, and even though it produces great art.

And studies who pay directors to make this art will only fund you if you will make a lot of money. So they're more likely to fund a movie similar to Transformers than Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life. When you also factor in merchandising Transformers has an even bigger advantage.

Fun fact: originally "It's A Wonderful Life" was so poorly received that the studio didn't renew the copyright. As it could be shown without having to pay anyone royalties TV companies broadcast it because it was cheaper than other movies. As a result it became a classic.

I'm well aware of this; it doesn't actually counter my argument.

Since Stephen King has written several books it's easy to compare Dolores Claiborne to his other works to determine whether these issues did make it more popular.

Below is a list containing the 5 books published before Dolores Claiborne and the 5 books after.

Misery (1987)
The Tommyknockers (1987)
The Dark Half (1989)
Needful Things (1991)
Gerald's Game (1992)
Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Insomnia (1994)
Rose Madder (1995)
The Green Mile (1996)
Desperation (1996)
Bag of Bones (1998)



While the movies aren't always equivalent to the books it is easier to determine how well they sold. According to the list of Stephen King movies released in cinemas (adjusted for inflation figures) here's how well each book that was turned into a movie sold. I'm comparing Dolores Claiborne released in 1995 to other 90's movies.

Here are the movies by date

4 Misery $115,555,900 11/30/1990
24 Tales From the Darkside: The Movie $30,719,500 05/04/1990
31 Graveyard Shift $21,796,600 10/26/1990
9 The Lawnmower Man $61,571,700 03/06/1992
11 Sleepwalkers $58,548,700 04/10/1992
23 Pet Sematary II $32,784,600 8/28/1992
27 Needful Things $29,197,600 8/27/1993
32 The Dark Half $20,402,100 4/23/1993
35 Children of the Corn II $13,422,400 1/29/1993
14 The Shawshank Redemption $53,014,600 9/23/1994
17 Dolores Claiborne $44,579,400 3/24/1995
37 The Mangler $3,259,700 03/03/1995
30 Stephen King's Thinner $27,581,700 10/25/1996
36 Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace $4,338,800 01/12/1996
34 Apt Pupil $15,042,900 10/23/1998
38 The Night Flier $212,800 02/06/1998
1 The Green Mile $207,878,800 12/10/1999
28 The Rage: Carrie 2 $27,832,900 03/12/1999

and by ranking

1 The Green Mile $207,878,800 12/10/1999
4 Misery $115,555,900 11/30/1990
9 The Lawnmower Man $61,571,700 03/06/1992
11 Sleepwalkers $58,548,700 04/10/1992
14 The Shawshank Redemption $53,014,600 9/23/1994
17 Dolores Claiborne $44,579,400 3/24/1995
23 Pet Sematary II $32,784,600 8/28/1992
24 Tales From the Darkside: The Movie $30,719,500 05/04/1990
27 Needful Things $29,197,600 8/27/1993
28 The Rage: Carrie 2 $27,832,900 03/12/1999
30 Stephen King's Thinner $27,581,700 10/25/1996
31 Graveyard Shift $21,796,600 10/26/1990
32 The Dark Half $20,402,100 4/23/1993
34 Apt Pupil $15,042,900 10/23/1998
35 Children of the Corn II $13,422,400 1/29/1993
36 Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace $4,338,800 01/12/1996
37 The Mangler $3,259,700 03/03/1995
38 The Night Flier $212,800 02/06/1998

http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=stephenking.htm&adjust_yr=2012&p=.htm

So while Dolores Claiborne did better than many other movies there were many other movies that sold much better despite not being about issues.

There are colossal issues with this measure. First of all, it's not actually relevant to my point, which was solely that Dolores Claiborne sold millions, which should justify its existence (if your sole measure of worth is profit).

Secondly, the film adaptation of Dolores Claiborne replaced the African-American protagonist with a caucasion, so it's not relevant when our discussion concerns diversity and minority representation.

 

[Silvanus]

You were the one who claimed that the books you listed were tremendously popular, not me. I pointed out that this description was completely inaccurate by listing books that were tremendously popular.

The "tremendously popular" goalposts are completely different from the "most famous books ever" ones, which we were just using.

Well there are a lot of babies and toddlers who don't know how to read. Given that all labels on medicine have to be written so that a 12 year can understand them I'd say that there's a fair few adults who don't have good comprehensive skills (so they're unlikely to read some of the more complex books).

Remember that Harry Potter and Twilight aren't particularly complex books; you would be discounting pretty much every complex book, since none of them are as well-selling as simpler ones.

Theatre is in decline because other things make more money, so investors are discounting that which is less profitable in favour of that which makes more money. While theatre may not die out completely it is becoming increasingly niche and if they do produce any good shows investor won't be thinking "let's revive the theatre" but "how can I made this into a movie/game/toy" (such as Mama Mia).

Except, of course, all the people still making millions upon millions from Theatre, who aren't abandoning the medium. Investors are not actually all doing one (fairly simplistic) thing: that's just reductionist.

The reasons why people are more likely to make the next Transformers rather than the next Casablanca do counter your argument.

What do you imagine my argument is? I've repeated several times, now, that I'm well aware that some things sell better than others, and my argument is that the less-well-selling things should still exist.

In the section to which you wrote in response, I was stating that it's not a bloody competition, and art does not need to outsell all other art in order to "win". Some people make art to make good art; not everybody is contending to outsell LOTR. Responding by merely reiterating that some sell better than others, or are more likely to be made, doesn't address that. It's not always a competition to be the #1 bestselling book of all time.

It justifies my point that books with issues don't sell better than books than aren't about issues.

If you were to assume that correlation proves causation, and dismiss every other variable at play, and then draw that conclusion from a single example it would.

Wait was that the issue in Dolores Claiborne? I thought the issue was child abuse. How did the books differ from the film?

Oh, it seems I got it mixed up with something else just then. Still, Dolores Claiborne deals with an abusive marriage and the power dynamic between a household maid and her rich employer, in addition to child abuse. There are issues of class in there too.

 

[Silvanus]

And how many copies does a book have to sell before it becomes "tremendously popular"?

It's a subjective standard, so an exact number does not exist. I would have thought topping the NYT Bestseller list would have qualified, though.

Some people may make millions from the theatre but others make billions from films. That's why films can attract investors in a way the theatre cannot.

Indeed. Nobody has been arguing against this; my point is that people are still happy to make theatre, and other people are still happy to enjoy it.

Y'know, some people are quite satisfied with being millionaires.

And my argument is that the less-well-selling things will fade into obscurity because they can't compete with the more popular things. There's only so much space in art galleries and so many theatres, so you cannot expect something that draws thousands to exist when there are things that will draw millions. An example of this are the books by Percy Shelley which were popular in their day but faded into obscurity because his wife's book Frankenstein was more popular.

Y'Think better-selling things will have longer lasting appeal? That the cast of 'Glee' will outlast Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison; that 50 Shades will outlast Wordsworth; that Transformers 2 will outlast Casablanca and Its A Wonderful Life; that Vincent Van Gogh has almost no lasting appeal?

Well, if that's how you feel...

If kind of does. If art isn't popular enough it will be sidelined by that which sells better. As I already stated theatre shows that don't draw in large crowds are performed less frequently than the more popular shows. You may not like that all but the best selling art is ignored but that's how the world works.

...but the art still exists, is still enjoyed, is still created.

Actually if we're trying to determine whether books with issues sell better than books without issues then it's sufficient to look at the top 100 best selling books of the year to see how many of these books deal with issues. If none of them deal with issues then this implies that having issues isn't a major factor regarding the number of sales.

But nobody is trying to determine that; you've misinterpreted my argument again. We can't really have a debate unless you engage with what I'm actually arguing.

 

[Silvanus]

And my point is that just because some people enjoy theatre doesn't change the fact that those who are looking to make money by investing in things won't invest in theatre because they can make higher returns elsewhere.

Right, and for the eleventh time, nobody is arguing against the fact that more people invest in theatre than film.

Theatre still gets made. People still enjoy it for artistic reasons. I don't give a damn whether more investors are picking something than something else.

Making irrelevant comparisons is a sign of a weak argument. Comparing different styles of music, books with different themes, and movies from different genres just shows that you don't know what you're talking about. Bob Dylan's popularity meant that other folk singers were sent into obscurity, just like Glee's popularity meant other teen dramas and teen music was sent into obscurity.

You just appealed to diversity. You just made the point that these examples appeal to different people, fill different niches, and are not in direct competition.

That was my point. I brought up those examples precisely to illustrate what you just described.

Care to explain how I've misinterpreted you and what you actually meant.

Also if you can't show that books/movies/games with issues sell as well as or better than books/movies/games without issues then this is strong evidence that people don't like books/movies/games with issues. In a world where sales are important it's difficult to justify something not proven to increase sales and anything that will reduce sales can't be justified.

Can't be justified... if literally the only measure of worth you have for art is profit. Thankfully, not all creatives agree. In fact, if something is created entirely and exclusively to make money-- not even partially for artistic merit, or to evoke an emotional response, or make a message, or even tell a good story-- then it isn't even art. It's just product.

 

[mister R]

haha wow you guys are the walls of text really needed?

i mean sheesh do you actually expect people to read all that?? xD

 

[Silvanus]

SNIP

We're talking at cross purposes here; we simply have entirely different values when it comes to art, and we would just be repeating ourselves again if this continued.

haha wow you guys are the walls of text really needed?

i mean sheesh do you actually expect people to read all that?? xD

Uanime5 and myself, I'm pretty sure, only really expected each other to be following our argument.