Jimquisition: Stupid Sexy Bayonetta

[Metalrocks]

agreed. even when i have never played any of the games since they are not available for pc (unfortunately) but as long the she has some sort of character, you can make her as crazy sexy looking as you want.

 

[Don Incognito]

It shows disrespect because he was judging the game by his own tastes, not his audience's. The people who play GTA don't care about sexism,

According to who, exactly? I've played GTA games, and I care about sexism.

 

[Grampy_bone]

Bully platform? You consider talking about sexism for twenty seconds to be bullying? Really? Why is it that I live in a world where expressing an opinion contrary of the mainstream is considered bullying? Showing disrespect for the medium? So is any criticism of any video game ever disrespecting the medium now? No it isn't because that argument makes no sense.

To address this, Bully Pulpit was a term coined by Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900's. In that time, the word "Bully" meant something was good. He referred to the presidency as a "Bully pulpit," and what he meant was that even though the president lacks direct legislative power they have an excellent ("bully") voice in which to preach a message or promote an agenda.

So when I say a gamespot reviewer has a "bully platform" I am not saying that they are a literal bully in the modern sense, rather that they have a strong and influential voice which will reach more people than a layperson, and with that voice comes some responsibility to their readers to be ethical and fair.

Its really quite amazing that when the audience demands that the authors of these platforms be fair they are not only told no, they will not be fair, but also that fairness is impossible. Hence, GamerGate.

 

[Grampy_bone]

It shows disrespect because he was judging the game by his own tastes, not his audience's. The people who play GTA don't care about sexism,

According to who, exactly? I've played GTA games, and I care about sexism.

The 34 Million people who bought the game despite it's "horrible sexism," that's who.

 

[Therumancer]

I have to disagree with a lot of what is being said here. To begin with, it's perfectly fine to say you agree with a general principle but then say "however" and point out why it does not apply to a specific person or situation. When it comes to a lot of these self-proclaimed feminists talking about games and such, oftentimes without any valid criticisms and simply seeking a platform, they cannot expect to go on the gender offensive and then pull the "oh we're defenseless womenfolk, and you can't go at us full tilt" bit as a defense. Basically if your insecure in the face of rape threats and the like due to the very real threats involved and a lack of belief in your ability as a woman to defend yourself, you really can't go around screaming about how the "damsel in distress" trope and the lack of relative agency among female characters is unrealistic or unhealthy. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in getting the point of some of these threats, basically when someone like Anita Sarkeesian goes off about a video game princess always needs a hero to save her which is sexist and unfair, it's funny how her first reflex is to start playing the political game to attract white knights to come to her rescue while she runs off and hides somewhere. In some respects someone could make a pretty funny video game out of this, a clone of say Mario Brothers where you have a digitized Zoe or Anita calling for help while a tubby Jim Sterling or Bob Chipman come to rescue them, while everyone scores points for hypocricy by talking about the agency of women in the various cut scenes.

To put it into context, working security do you have any idea how many times people have told me they were going to do crap to my ass in retaliation? I couldn't do the job if I was going to get uptight or go crying every time I did something people didn't like.

One of the big reasons why I do not take a lot of "internet feminists" seriously and talk about attention trolling is specifically because they have no conviction. They use the threats and such simply to increase their own fame, playing off of them in such a way that draws people who don't think it through to their defense. Someone who was at least trying to be serious about the agency of women wouldn't be crying about getting threats when they stuck their head out. Just like a security guard isn't going to cry because some drunk gets nasty when you reinforce a bartender in telling him "no more to drink" when he REALLY wants to drink more. If you, a champion of women, can't stand on your own two feet (not that I think most are thinking it through this much) you can't really sit here and talk about how video games don't represent women in society while at the same time your pretty much calling out for other people to save you again and again and fight your battles for you while you hide. As a general rule you'll notice people like Anita doing things like shutting off their comments sections, and as a general rule you see more proxy battles happening.

I could say more but that covers a lot of it.

Jim's comments on Bayonetta aren't surprising given his other attitudes on things like this. The thing that Jim fails to realize is that if there is nothing wrong with Bayonetta, and nobody wants to take our games like this away from us, then there is no reason for a discussion. After all the only purpose of such dialogue is to acknowledge both sides and reach a middle ground which pretty much means things change, and yes... we have our games taken away from us (as Jim tends to put it). The thing is that I don't think there is actually any relevancy to the side that opposes games like this besides the attention it gets for people who pretend there are legitimate issues in need of discussion. In such a case simply acknowledging these things does a disservice to everyone and opens the door for anyone with ridiculous attitudes to demand the same kind of attention.

As I've said before the REAL issue with things like this is not games like "Bayonetta" in of themselves, but the fact that so few games are produced. This means that only the most popular styles of games and types of protagonists are created as everyone aims for a few big blockbusters each year. Someone like "Bayonetta" appeals to more men AND women than other types of female protagonists, indeed she's cut from the general fantasy sci-fi/fantasy mould that you see both with male writers an female writers, regardless of their intended audience. Indeed the whole term "Mary Sue" exists because of the outrageously overdone characters a lot of female fantasy creators make especially in fan fiction circles. I've occasionally felt that Bayonetta is pretty much a Mary Sue character come to life, pretty much the embodiment of every female fantasy character created by a teenage girl with a keyboard and a sugar high ever, placed into an equally over the top fantasy world that comes across like the acid trip love child between a "dark" action Anime or JRPG and an overdone paranormal romance. In a lot of respects Bayonetta is pretty much the everywoman of heroic fantasy, hence the appeal, even with, and perhaps arguably especially to, women given the amount of cosplays and such I've heard about or seen pics of over the years.

That said there is doubtlessly a large minority of people who would like to see more conservative female characters, that said like every other large minority in gaming they happen to get screwed no matter how vocal they happen to be. It's sort of like turn based RPG players and the like, we're out there, games aimed at us can be profitable, but people don't just want to do fair work for fair pay, they want to keep chasing that monster payoff by going after the biggest markets. If we saw more "B" and "C" level games being released alongside the AAA ones you'd see more variation and of course a lot more people would be happy. That said right now the niche audiences, even big ones, are pretty much relegated to indie games. You see plenty of fairly hardcore RPGs, conservative female characters (look at adventure and hidden object games, as well as things like the Nancy Drew series), and your non-white, non-Japanese protagonists ("The Journey Below" I believe it was called has an Afro-Caribbeean atmosphere).

The thing is that in the current environment you cannot simply say "let's talk, we want more of this" because that comes at the expense of something else. "More Conservative Action Girl: The Game" might be produced but if it happens in this market that means "Bayonetta" doesn't get produced because today's companies aren't going to try and do both games, or want to compete for the same market. Right now "Bayonetta" wins and got a sequel because that's simply put what more people want, and the guys with the money know that, despite how vocal those screaming from the other direction might be. Ideally you'd see the game industry make "More conservative action girl: the Game" to experiment with that niche at a much lower level. Say a "B" or "C" level Bayonetta being a beat 'em up is already exceptional in that it's probably an "A" as opposed to a "AAA" game when you get down to it. Sadly we do not exist in an environment where that is going to be happening, yet that is what we should actually be pushing for. When more games are made every year, then you can start more fairly talking about what else there should be, and what major niches can be filled.

The point here is that there is no real room for a dialogue. At the end of the day there is nothing wrong with Bayonetta, and nothing wrong with wanting more conservative takes on the female action hero as well (which tend to be less popular all around). That said we can't have both at the professional level right now, as a result Bayonetta takes the "A Space" and for the other types of female protagonists you pretty much have to dredge the indie games (Steam Greenlight and such) just like everything else that doesn't meet the criteria of "what the biggest overall demographic wants". I'll also say that I think a lot of the problem (shades of Gamersgate) is that people with certain points of view have gotten used to being uncontested in an environment they control for so long that they have begun to confuse themselves for some kind of overwhelming majority, when they actually aren't one. This is why you see so many gaming media crusades for social justice and "what people want" in games that go nowhere, because the people speaking don't actually speak for the gamers they claim to represent. I'll also say that I think a lot of the backlash against people like Anita Sarkeesian is specifically because of how she presents herself, and the level she has been known to operate at (Gaming Ambassador). Basically she acts like she represents the attitudes of gamers or a majority of them when she does not, which irritates people. On some levels this came out with #gamersgate as well, where it was pretty much just assumed that the general masses were going to fall into line in a specific direction. At the end of the day people who have no strong opinion one way or another are going to line up against you when you start trying to speak for them or tell other people what they think. Nothing specific about Jim here, other than I disagree with him about the idea of dialogue here, as for a lot of reasons it just can't happen. If anything one could argue the dialogue already happened, and since we have seen a "Bayonetta 2" that's pretty much the answer to a lot of these questions in the current environment, it should be considered a done deal, dialoguing until the side on the losing end gets what it wants isn't so much a dialogue but a demand for change being presented politely (ie it's a dialogue as long as we get what we want, it's not a dialogue in our minds if you hear what we have to say but then don't agree and do what your doing anyway). People listened, Team Ninja is still in business, Bayonetta 2 was made, and life goes on. That said I'm sure if more games are developed the result of that dialogue will be that you'll see some more conservative female characters that don't come across like a mary sue, Julie Bell piece, or a character walked out of a Kim Harrison novel.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I think Bayonetta is in such a gray zone as far as the issue is concerned that we're almost better off just letting the franchise be.

On the one hand, you've got an extremely empowered female character who has no solid dependencies towards males. Most of the masculine characters allied to her are basically window dressing or odd comic relief attempts, anyway.

On the other - yeah. BDSM references all over, crotch shots aplenty, so much innuendo that I sometimes find myself groaning and just wishing she'd shut up. Exclusive double-entendres do not a layered character make.

Both points of view sort of coalesce into a general thick soup of "Eh? She's an okay character, I guess?" that I'd have to season with the biggest, most exaggerated shrugs of utter indecision that I could possibly manage. I love the gameplay and the main characters confuse the heck out of my Gender Equality radar. I love the level and enemy designs and yet Bayo's walk cycle makes me pull off something that's in-between a chortle and a spit-take.

I don't know how to feel about this game series to such an extent that I'd have to summarize it by considering that the Bayonetta series is just... a thing, for me. It exists, people play it, and I have no defined emotional reactions toward it - just a heck of a lot of confusion.

 

[Don Incognito]

It shows disrespect because he was judging the game by his own tastes, not his audience's. The people who play GTA don't care about sexism,

According to who, exactly? I've played GTA games, and I care about sexism.

The 34 Million people who bought the game despite it's "horrible sexism," that's who.

You have some evidence to prove this assertion that none of these 34,000,000 people care about sexism?

 

[Erttheking]

Bully platform? You consider talking about sexism for twenty seconds to be bullying? Really? Why is it that I live in a world where expressing an opinion contrary of the mainstream is considered bullying? Showing disrespect for the medium? So is any criticism of any video game ever disrespecting the medium now? No it isn't because that argument makes no sense.

To address this, Bully Pulpit was a term coined by Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900's. In that time, the word "Bully" meant something was good. He referred to the presidency as a "Bully pulpit," and what he meant was that even though the president lacks direct legislative power they have an excellent ("bully") voice in which to preach a message or promote an agenda.

So when I say a gamespot reviewer has a "bully platform" I am not saying that they are a literal bully in the modern sense, rather that they have a strong and influential voice which will reach more people than a layperson, and with that voice comes some responsibility to their readers to be ethical and fair.

Its really quite amazing that when the audience demands that the authors of these platforms be fair they are not only told no, they will not be fair, but also that fairness is impossible. Hence, GamerGate.

And pray tell, what is the agenda the reviewer was promoting? That GTA V had sexist elements? That's true, but aside from that what? That agenda shouldn't buy the game and couldn't enjoy it? No, she flat out said they should buy it at the end. That GTA V was a bad game? No, she still gave it a 9/10 and said it raises the bar for sandbox games. So the only agenda I can see her promoting is...sexism is bad...so what's the big deal here?

Ethical and fair? Please tell me how pointing out that GTA V has sterotypes for female characters and criticizing for it is being unethical or unfair. Because it isn't. Really when you get down to it people have been saying about how reviewers should be "Objective" "Professional" "ethical" and a load of other generic terms the past for days for when they try and say why reviewers shouldn't talk about sexism. When they get down to it though, they're not advocating for better writing in journalism. They're trying to shut dissenting opinions out.

...Where the Hell did Gamergate come from? Or are you saying that this is what Gamergate considers to be a problem in gaming journalism? If it is, congratulations. You just made it so that I consider Gamergate to be even less valid.

 

[Erttheking]

It shows disrespect because he was judging the game by his own tastes, not his audience's. The people who play GTA don't care about sexism,

According to who, exactly? I've played GTA games, and I care about sexism.

The 34 Million people who bought the game despite it's "horrible sexism," that's who.

People can still enjoy a game and also acknowledge the flaws it has. I do with GTA V. Same with Metro Last Light.

 

[Rellik San]

To put it into context, working security do you have any idea how many times people have told me they were going to do crap to my ass in retaliation? I couldn't do the job if I was going to get uptight or go crying every time I did something people didn't like.

I work in a bar (among other jobs) and the number of threats I get is ridiculous too, I've had people threaten to literally shoot me... which would of been terrifying if they didn't respond with: "It's not a threat it's a promise." to which I responded with "It's not a promise mate... it's a cliché."

That said, not everyone has that same fortitude for these things.

 

[small]

the saddest part about this entire video is that something as common sense as this actually needs to be explained to people

 

[Erttheking]

the saddest part about this entire video is that something as common sense as this actually needs to be explained to people

It's like I've been saying for awhile now. "Common sense isn't."

 

[Ipsen]

You're right, there shouldn't be a need for the "I'm not racist..." portion. There shouldn't, but sadly we live in a world where the idea of 'political correctness' exists, and someone simply being a certain colour, gender orientation, or anything else, can be picked up on by certain people as being your real intention, even when it isn't. Even though you're specifying Rick, it can still be overlooked. It's the same as when phrases like "those people" or similar are somehow, I really don't understand how but somehow, are perceived as racist.

The fact is, as you said, their racial identity or whatever else SHOULD be in a vacuum - it shouldn't even be a factor at all - but some people, in their own minds as they perceive what they've heard, cannot prevent themselves from making it a factor, and impressing that factor on the original speaker.

Then ignore these people. It's one thing to be sensitive to racial issues, and by no means do they need to they need to be ignored in this day and age; I don't even find most acts of 'political correctness' off-putting. And if you're not being racist, you have no reason to be up in arms. Do not be so, if this is the case.

However, in crying 'racism' often, you're under the assumption that someone is under attack, for race, that. The assumption in itself is likely to be a notion discriminating of the 'attacked' race, especially when more context isn't known (like you wouldn't from the statement about our fantasy Rick).

In any case, again, while you're not EVER responsible for the racial prejudice of others, whether the person is blatantly discriminating against a race, or crying racism without context, just.... don't be a jerk. For you scenario with our fantasy Rick, your initial comment is pretty dickish and gossipy in itself, racial tension or none. Go talk to Rick yourself, frame the statement with more respect to Rick, etc.; you can do better than that hypothetical.

We don't need to call out so much more racism, even as racism exists to day, because the real solution is doing BOTH calling out racism AND being good to each other. One on its own makes the situation worse, and the other on its own is directionless fantasy. Both together seems to be still hard as shit, but it contains context to move forward with.

In any case, I came to quote this:

I'm of the opinion that if Bayonetta existed in an industry that wasn't constantly mired by problems with women people would be praising it for it's expression of female sexuality.

My analogy in this case is with female pop stars. When Madonna came on the scene and practically invented the whole phenomenon people did (and still do) praise her for doing this new, bold thing that challenged previously held prudish views of women. But now that it's pretty much commonplace for pop stars to perform half naked it's become less "brave expression of power" and more "oh they're using sex to sell again".

This dissonance between the individual product and it's wider cultural context is one of the main driving forces behind the whole sexism spat. Feminist critics occasionally dismiss a product purely on cultural context and not the product itself. Conversely, the public sometimes mistake a critique of a product's context as an attack on the product itself. This inevitably leads to miscommunication and that leads to these huge dramatic messes.

And agree; I had the funny notion after the Bayo 2 review here that the game would age well.

Maybe it won't for game related reasons in the future, but in a world and industry that just might become more conscious of women and other races, I don't think they'd look back on Bayo 2's portrayal and think 'What disgusting plebs people in the past were.'

 

[ZiggyE]

Whenever there's infighting amongst feminists, it's usually because the extremists take shit too far and the moderates are left wondering "what?", as is the case in this issue. Hopefully some of the moderates would catch on that the whole movement is a toxic little follow the leader get up, but that probably won't happen anytime soon.

Anyway, I can't help but feel this video would have been better targeted at people like Jonathan McIntosh who were so insistent the game was certainly sexist rather than the people who had the common sense to call Polygon out on their idiotic review. Too much focus on the "It's okay to not like Bayonetta" and not enough on the "It's okay to like Bayonetta". Disappointing.

 

[VanQ]

"I think Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Gets across that it's opinion, won't cause any issue from me.
"Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Immediately earns my ire, expressing opinion as fact.

Also, the first 50 seconds of that video was the most condescending assery I've experienced in a long time. People were dicks to you on twitter, that's awful. Don't take it out on your audience.

Hey, uh, member of Jim's audience here. I KNEW he wasn't talking about me. Kindly don't claim that I'm being attacked when I know for a fact I'm not. People really need to stop freaking the Hell out and assume everything is directed at them. Did you ever perform the "I don't condone harassment but-" action? If not, he wasn't talking about you and you can relax.

OT: When you get down to it, this is really just the same old people getting pissy because a game they were looking forward towards got a bad review with a new coat of paint. People just want to shut up opposing views.

Thank fucking god for you, Jim. This video should be required viewing for participation in any online discussion anywhere.

Also, the first 50 seconds of that video was the most condescending assery I've experienced in a long time. People were dicks to you on twitter, that's awful. Don't take it out on your audience.

If that statement pissed you off that much... I think a bit more introspection might be in order on exactly why you found that offensive...

I am not one of the people who did that. Regardless, he faced the camera in the opening portion of his video and made that statement. It may not have been directed at me specifically but it came across that way. And whether or not it came across that way, it was still extremely condescending to do that. I don't need a lecture on harassment and not from Jim of all people.

 

[thewatergamer]

Jim with all due respect (And alot of it I might add) I don't think it's right of you to come out and complain about gamers hating on Anita, and saying that "We shouldn't be disagreeing with her" which to me reeks of you siding with her side of the argument, I'm not saying that the death threats and other BS is ok, its not it's terrible, but that doesn't mean I'm now not allowed to disagree and tear apart her opinions that shes trying to build up as "proven facts"

Now then OT:

Great video as always agree with pretty much everything you have to say, would have been nice to see you defend us gamer's a bit more, but then again I'm obviously biased so I can't fault you for that too much

 

[Charleston]

It shows disrespect because he was judging the game by his own tastes, not his audience's. The people who play GTA don't care about sexism, so chastising the game at such length was basically insulting to them. Its really odd because it shows either a lack of understanding about what the game was about or the intent to use a platform with a guaranteed audience to "score points for feminism" by blasting a popular game with baseless criticism.

It's like a person reviewing pornography making complaint after complaint about how the movies all have naked people having sex in them. Sure, this is "just their honest opinion," but it's clearly a useless and disingenuous opinion. They are claiming to have the audience's tastes in mind when in reality they are pushing their own.

Are you saying his review was incorrect because he used his personal taste to critique the game? You see how you are twisting the definition of "critique" to the point where it means absolutely anything, right? Neither the audience's opinion nor the Designer's intent are in any way relevant to a Critic. Its only job is to review the game-in-itself. A game is not about anything "it" wants to be (because as far as I know, a game is not a person), but rather, whatever the player sees in it. For this particular reviewer, the portrayal of women in the game was detracting from the experience and was a form of bad design that deserved mentioning. It's relevant because the player (in this case, in the form of a reviewer) says so. You can do whatever you want, take it or leave it, but pretending to reject it behind this fallacious conception of the word "ethics" makes no sense whatsoever. I can think whatever I want about Fox News, but I'd never say they lack ethics, nor would I use such a term to criticize them.

You say its all just opinions so who cares, but journalists have a specific voice and platform which makes their voice louder and more influential than others. This is what "Bully Pulpit" means. With this platform comes an implicit understanding that the author of the review is not writing for themselves but for their audience, and thus will at least attempt to avoid bias or even the appearance of it. Basically whenever someone says "hey it's just my opinion and besides being unbiased is impossible" that is just an excuse for a lack of ethics and lazy writing. The criticism of the review was the audience declaring that the author had abused their position and thus had lost the audience's trust. It's hard to trust a reviewer as a source of consumer information if you feel they are pushing a personal agenda over everything else.

And here your definitions (and very often, GamerGate's) start tangling until they make no sense whatsoever. "Agenda", "bias" and "ideology" are three different words with three specific meanings. A "bias" is a one-sided lack of concern towards different opinions. Taking ONE POINT out of a game's score because of an specific element of it that you took twenty seconds to review clearly means that the point of GTA games didn't go over his head. At best you could say someone like Anita is biased, but she talks about specific narrative tropes in video games, she doesn't review the games in a strict sense. The part that I outlined in bold hast two clauses, a) the author writes for an audience and b) therefore he must avoid biases. A) is incorrect because your causality is inverted: The author doesn't write for people, but rather people read what the author writes. This seems like semantics but it's a very simple point: a musician doesn't compose what people "want" to listen; he composes and, if he's any good, people will flock towards him. The moment he starts pandering to what the people want is what we often call "selling out". Considering the hyperbolic reaction some people have had towards feminist critique, I'd say they are quite far from appealing to any non-existant "score points for feminism". B) doesn't follow from a) in any way, even if we ignore what I've said previously. To have an Ideology and to have an Agenda are completely different things. The former is inescapable, the latter is unethical, both in the context of journalism and of art critique. The way to differentiate both is very simple: Jim Sterling has an ideology (feminist) and Anita Sarkeesian has an Agenda (Post-modern feminist cultural critique or whatever the hell one can call it). Anita doesn't review games as we've established, so she is (should be) irrelevant to GamerGate. Jim's reviews are notoriously conditioned by his being a feminist, but only in the elements where it is pertinent. In other words, if he (hypothetically) where to call Bayonetta "gross and sexist" he would do so when referring to the aesthetic, the story, or whatever, but not when referring to something like the combat mechanics. Because a story is relevant to a critique in so far as the game has one (He wouldn't criticize Mario for having a bad story, since, if I oversimplify it, for all intents and purposes Mario doesn't have a "story") it must be mentioned in the review and it must be part of the score. To not even casually adress in any way the blatant chauvinism in some parts of early GTA games is to either be biased against feminism, or to say that the it's not relevant to the enjoyment of the game, which is a subjective statement. At this point, Gamergate's nonsensical use of words like "fairness" starts crumbling and showing it's true ugly face. The face of a movement that is too scared to accept that people can enjoy things in different ways than you do, and that those critiques, which are being more and more considered by developers, will (inevitably, hopefully, logically) have an impact on the way they make their games, which will open up for different forms of games (without obviously eliminating the older ones; there's room for everyone, as they say) with different focuses and philosophies other than the gameplay obsession and idea of games as masturbatory fun that some people seem to have. A view that, in my opinion, is a lack of respect towards the ridiculous potential for awesomeness that games have.

(Apologies for any mistakes, it's freaking late)

 

[Dradeeus]

God, I wish I had enough money to buy the system this game is on and the game itself. ._.
Was purposely avoiding footage to avoid feeling bad about missing out, but there it is.
Anyways, well said, Jim.

 

[Therumancer]

To put it into context, working security do you have any idea how many times people have told me they were going to do crap to my ass in retaliation? I couldn't do the job if I was going to get uptight or go crying every time I did something people didn't like.

I work in a bar (among other jobs) and the number of threats I get is ridiculous too, I've had people threaten to literally shoot me... which would of been terrifying if they didn't respond with: "It's not a threat it's a promise." to which I responded with "It's not a promise mate... it's a cliché."

That said, not everyone has that same fortitude for these things.

The point is that it's part of the jobs we've been doing, you work as casino security, a bouncer, or whatever you either take this kind of thing and learn how to deal with it without making it into a scene (the bottom line is to keep things quiet while getting your job done, not be a tough guy) or you wind up not doing that job very long. You intentionally go to work knowing this is going to happen and cope with it, you don't cry and yell because the job your doing means your going to take abuse.

Someone like Anita Sarkeesian, and a lot of other SJWs for that matter, intentionally go out there and start talking smack on touchy issues, knowing they are intentionally pissing people off, and they cry and scream when they get backlash. If your going to be "Feminist Frequency" and start firing off at the mouth about tropes and the empowerment of women in fantasy, you had damn well be ready to deal with people threatening you, and then showing the same agency your claiming women possess as a central part of your arguments. If someone can make a rape threat to you and you crumble and start crying for help, you don't deserve sympathy, your showing you never belonged where your sitting. Sort of like how if you take a job where you need to do alcohol shut offs, if you can't handle the abuse that inevitably comes with that and be polite to people being very rude and threatening to you, then you have no bloody business doing the job. Basically if you can dish it out, but can't take it, you do not have the right to a platform, and people shouldn't be propping you up when your only real defense is to silence criticism and call for white knights to fight for you.

The thing about the whole "feminist" part of it in particular is that you see a lot of the ladies involved in this going off about how strong and empowered they happen to be, and how it's wrong for video games to present them otherwise. The point being things like how having a captured princess as a goal is a misogynistic stereotype, why can't say Zelda or Peach rescue themselves more often? Yet the same people making these arguments when confronted by their own personal internet versions of Bowser and Gannondorf go into hiding and scream for dudes to help them. To put it into perspective who has done more "fighting" online for say Zoe or Anita, them, or various proxies they raised while they themselves have remained relatively passive? You see more people defending the likes of Anita Sarkeesian than you see her defending herself... while she loudly "goes off into hiding". Basically becoming the very same trope she claims represents an offensive untruth. The irony of this has long since been obvious to me, and I'm surprised so few people picked up on it, and it's a big part of why I say she and a lot of those who behave similarly don't stand for anything besides self promotion and getting their name out there. Rather than the issue, it's all about the chaos and getting people to represent for them.

It's basically the equivalent of some sorority girl walking into a bar populated roughly 50-50 between bikers and a brother frat and loudly announcing "Oh hey this place is like the Blue Oyster in those movies right? The gay ones are the dudes with the leather and Harleys, nice of you to straighten it up" while "accidently" knocking over a club leader's drink. Knowing damn well that she's going to piss off the bikers, and the frat is honor bound to defend her, and there is going to be a brawl. Hey if she's lucky there will be a bunch of other students present to add to the chaos by commenting on how wrong it was to stereotype gays as well... (in the end it doesn't matter the point is it's about starting a fight, and the more chaos the better... she'll do anything to set off the powder keg). From where I sit it seems like people like Anita do this, except on the internet, and they are attacking regular gamers by calling them misogynists and such, knowing there are tons of SJWs an appeal away that will wade in swinging when she gets the predictable response. The internet has made things like this increasingly easy especially with the overall "culture war" where it is, and you see it happening in a lot of places.

I tend to think differently when people at least have the conviction to stand by what they think, remain at least fairly consistent and practice what they preach. If you can dish it out, you should be ready to take it. I for example say some very unpopular things on these forums (very unpopular) but I fight my own battles and am willing to take it back (for a while). I don't just drop a bomb and leave, or go screaming to try and rally defenders or whatever.

In the end if you can't take it, you don't belong there. Beyond a certain point it's not about being "brave" but a rabble rouser, especially when there is no real courage involved because your able to isolate yourself from the repercussions (shutting off or censoring comments), or put a wall between you and the other guys. When people like Jim Sterling and Bob Chipman do more fighting on behalf of some of these personalities than the people themselves do that right there says a lot. On the whole "Zoe" side (as much as ashe actually has one) in Gamersgate? By the way where IS Zoe other than a few snipes on social media during all of this? Anita's hiding from the people's she's enraged and even says so herself, some movement leader she is eh?

Sorry about the rambling, I'm just explaining my point, it's more than these people just not being thick skinned enough. Especially seeing as it's a recurring thing with the same people, it's not like someone who say tried to do security, found out they couldn't deal with it, and then moved on to do another job. It's sort of like how you might have some dude in security who goes out and starts brawls every bloody night because he can't get the job done without rising to bait or turning it into a fight, yet the guy won't quit, and you can't get him fired for whatever reason (Tribal, family of management, etc...). I suppose if the guy needs the money and can't find any other work there might be some sympathy involved, but if the guy just likes to fight and decides to make everyone else's job a pain in the arse because of it? That's how I see the people doing this. In many cases I don't even think they are all that thin skinned, they want the battles for purposes of self promotion and to watch the chaos they spread.

 

[Wisq]

The first is that it is NOT okay to dock a game's Metacritic score because you personally have a moral or societal concern with a video game.

This statement is ridiculous by its very nature.

One, there's a reason that we have multiple critics out there, rather than just a single official critic that gives everything a single official score. It's because we want multiple viewpoints.

When you're looking to judge works of media, you want to read multiple reviews, look at the points they raise, determine which of those points are relevant to you, and decide accordingly. Long-term, you can find reviewers you generally agree with and take their opinions as stronger than others, although you should still never rely on a single reviewer (who knows, they might have just been having a really good/bad day).

Two, similarly, there's a reason that Metacritic is an aggregate of multiple reviews. It attempts to quickly gauge the overall objective quality of a game by combining multiple subjective reviews. A single bad review isn't going to have a huge impact on the Metacritic score, so long as it's a major game with a lot of reviews.

Plus, subject matter matters. If I have two games, both with the exact same game mechanics, exact same technical specs and performance, etc etc., and one of them is a typical shooter while the other one is Baby Murder Simulator 2014, you know what? Yeah, I expect the latter to get some lower scores. Some reviewers found it objectionable. Some people playing it will find it objectionable. Therefore, you could say it's an objectively worse game by virtue of the fact that fewer people can enjoy it. If you're looking for a sure-fire gift, pick the first game; if it's for yourself, then just make your own damn decision.

Three, on the subject of Metacritic scores as determining how much money devs make and whatnot: So what? This is the fault of the publishers who make these stupid decisions. Letting this affect review scores amounts to blackmail. There are other, far more useful and important stats you could be basing bonuses on; you know, like, how many copies a game sells? And keep in mind that a huge number of people still buy games without reading a single review, just based on brand names and marketing (which is how Aliens: Colonial Marines sold over 1.31 million copies).