Jimquisition: The Creepy Cull of Female Protagonists

[Wolcik]

Awesome episode - I wasn't sure if going for kissing sound was better than sucking like in "Clerks" but then the end made me realise it was a good choice XD

 

[Treblaine]

snip for length

The industry is inundated with different type of male leads. There's something for everyone. Women aren't given the same opportunities. Our heroes are always sexy and ready to have sex. We don't get unattractive fighters (GoW), or goofballs (classic!Dante), or bitter assholes (new!Dante)or douchebags (Nate Drake) or average joes (Alan Wake)in droves. So when the few leading ladies we do get keep sticking to the same mold, at what point do women start calling out the creators to try something different?

And, yes, you are arguing that because Bayonetta is one of the very few female leads out there, that women shouldn't call out the problems with her/the game. You back it by saying because the industry won't chance another game with a female lead. And yet, we're seeing that already. Even with the critical love that Tomb Raider is getting, with the ferver that BG&E can still command of fans, we still see instances like developers having to fight to have the main female lead on the cover of her own game, or where another is pushed to the back as to not scare of the menfolk. It's self-fulfilling: "Let's not not support this game with a female lead because the audience won't like it because we refuse to showcase it's best features, or fight for it like we do our dozen of other male-led titles!" But then the industry is surprised when obscure-but-entertaining title with a lady under-performs compared to Grizzled White Guy Saves The Day With Guns And Lasers VI: Payback Platinum Edition

If we aren't calling out the mistakes to provide constructive criticism, then how do we expect to reach a point where we'll see a healthy roster of varied female heroes? Are we to just wait until the industry has an epiphany?


And like I said. Bayonetta was fun. I wasn't bothered by it. But that's me personally. My friend, however was bothered by a few aspects. That didn't make her feelings any less valid because they didn't phase me. Because she still enjoyed the game on it's own merits. She just didn't like it when held as part of the industry mindset as a whole.

Well then you need to send the clear message:

"Give me more female characters"

not

"I don't like all these things about this character, or that character, etc"

Because when publishers hear this for every female lead, from alls sots of gamers, they'll conclude they don't want any female leads at all.

Our heroes are always sexy and ready to have sex.

This whole article is how that is not the case.

Marcus Fenix is not "unattractive" he simply isn't "beautiful". He isn't a paragon of rustic handsomeness, he would be known as a "bear" on certain forums. And I point you to The Boss from MGS3. Not a playable character, but still an attractive but not "conventionally beautiful" woman.

And there USED to be average joes as in the Resident Evil series who were female, very ordinary women.

Bayonetta was pretty goofball.

The problem is the message they are not getting is:

"Give us a female hero who is a pseudo-charming douchebag like Nathan Drake or a female badass similar to Marcus Fenix"

The message they are getting is:

"I hate this female character, and that one, and that one"

And they're like:

"Well I won't even bother next time, I put my heart and soul into this game... and they're trashing it everywhere"

You've got to balance it out, tell us what you like along with what you don't, be a fan!

or where another is pushed to the back as to not scare of the menfolk.

I don't think it's "all men" but the specifically the TYPE of men who will literally judge a game only by its cover art. A balance could have been struck but you have to appreciate the "Damned if they do damned if they don't" dilemma here.

If they had put the woman on the front who else would have then said "oh well they needed the woman's sexuality to sell the game".

And on PC, that's not the case. Bioshock Infinite sold on Steam has Elizabeth front and centre of the full page splash and the mini-icon which serves as the Steam equivalent of the "Cover art".

If we aren't calling out the mistakes to provide constructive criticism

Well you have to make sure that is actually IS constructive.

You see the variety you get in male heroes... isn't actually that great, and even then it didn't get there through attacking all alternatives.

And yes, you do wait for THE ARTIST to have his epiphany, just like back in "the supposed bad old days" of the 90's there was such a variety of depictions of female but now every depiction is picked apart with unfair criticism that developers are avoiding then and publishers are paranoid over them.

The way you condition an artist is find what they are doing right and hold it up high.

She just didn't like it when held as part of the industry mindset as a whole.

Well that's the problem. It's not a microcosm, it is the fault of those who DO THE HOLDING that make it part of the industry as a WHOLE.

The reality is that is't just one part. How can there be good balanced progress if things can't be taken one part at a time?

 

[gorfias]

My son and his buddies think it is weird of me to play as a female characters when allowed to do so in a game. I think they invest themselves into the game, that they imagine they are playing as an idealized version of themselves and to imagine that they are women, themselves, is just plain odd. They don't want to do it.

I, on the other hand, while seeing woman as more than just objects, find they are, among those other things, objects that are pleasing for male heterosexuals to view. If I'm playing a game, I'm looking at the character I'm playing a lot, so I enjoy having that character that I'm viewing a lot (Skyrim, Saint's Row the Third, Mass Effect) be female.

 

[Treblaine]

This was too large, i had to copy-paste into a word processor to get through it. Two pages!

You seem to assert that there needs to be an egotistical sexist, but I don't think it's that complicated. If the Return On Investment isn't there, the game doesn't get made. It doesn't even matter if the "tiny amount" means they end up in the black, if the publisher is trying to gain market share and maximize profits, they don't want niche projects that break even, they want blockbusters that earn big bucks. Whether that's right or not isn't what we're discussing here, but greed is the root of the problem, not sexism.

Video games are not viewed as an expressive form of art by the majority of people who write laws, report the news, and go out and vote. One cannot blame them when the industry is doing its best to exploit base desires and pander to the lowest common denominators. The solution to both issues? Education.

This has not been proven. This is publishers being hysterical and paranoid as usual.

What, you think they are running this like a science?!!? No, they are hedge fund managers who think they can do art by the numbers. They are telling DEVELOPERS how to do their job! That's not the way it should be.

And there is this very nasty and very recent idea in capitalism that big corporations have to do more than make a profit, they have to make as much profit as possible regardless of logn terms sustainability. The cause of this is the way shares are handled these days, they want a quick solid return yet they can easily sell their shares any time but can the developers so easily leave? No.

And it's not greed, it's stupidity. If it was greed then everyone would be happy. It's because the publishers are so stupid, they have no idea how to make games but they think because they are invested they are qualified.

The statement "only Sith deal in absolutes" is itself an absolute, so it can't be true if it was spoken by a Jedi that never deals with absolutes. If it's true, it invalidates the very point it was trying to make. It's a nice sentiment, but it falls apart under any real scrutiny.

I made that joke when I first saw the film.

It doesn't invalidate my point as my point was not that you are a Sith and I am a Jedi.

My point was you were working in absolutes.

I guess the other side of the coin is that you assume that a female lead - alone - will, regardless of all else, so benefit a game's possibility of success that it will profit everyone involved?

Irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking about how they are excluded, not how their inclusion is vital.

There's certainly a difference between a "good" and a "bad" character. Is gender parity alone the goal? Would it be sufficient to say that so long as we had equal numbers of "good" and "bad" male and female characters, at least they're equally represented?

No, artistic integrity is the goal as to spite how low brow it might sometimes be, the art is what makes games worth putting money into.

This cannot be achieved by publishers and their moronic paint-by-numbers approach.

Everyone is in it to make money. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, or dangerously naive.

NO! If they are in it JUST for the money they should have stayed hedge fund managers.

You put the art first and the money will follow. You discard the art for an idiotically simple approach that is purely looking and money and you'll lose it. Look at EA.

So far as I can tell, I am the only person who appealed to changing the sexual appetites of male gamers, back in my post on page 10. I am also probably the only person who has been attempting to parallel the failed evangelism of faiths and the failing evangelism of sexism in gaming in hopes that they don't make the same mistakes. On all accounts, I am standing by myself in a unique position that doesn't appear to be supported by anyone else in the thread. Pray tell who is the "everyone else" that I would be speaking for?

No, you are still claiming to know what all gamers think and feel!

Sorry people don't buy your theories ?standing by myself in a unique position? as if that alone counts for anything. The problem is your arguments are built on your assumptions that others do not accept.

As has already been stated, is this a straw man? I do not understand where I made the argument that the situation you've described is supposed to make sense.

Don't try to deny you haven't repeatedly perpetuated the myth that female player roles destroy the financial prospects of games.

Please explain how someone deserves something they don't want.

You have never established ?don't want?.
You have assumed ?Preference for male player character? equals ?actively reject game with female player character?

Things like how 80% of Mass Effect 1 +2 gamers choose male Shep... well considering male-shep is the default, the one that is on box art, one in ALL the advertising (till the very last game) and usually the model used in video reviews... and how people carry over their model from previous saves. That's not so much an equal choice.

Is the call for more female protagonists, good female protagonists, or more good female protagonists?

Any and/or all. There is no reason to delay. Just make the damn games!

You don't seem to have understood the analogy, so I'll put it differently. Companies like EA are the horse whip manufacturers. They've been in business for a (realtive to the industry) long time, and they see new technologies coming along to replace them as a threat, not something to adapt to. In almost every instance where you have an established manufacturing entity, they are extremely resistant to change. Even their new ideas seem like barely more than a new coat of paint on the old ideas. If they don't adapt and change, however, they will eventually die out, because the market to support them has fallen through. This is often because, whether a product really is superior or not, if the tastes of the consumers change, then so does the market.

Indie developers are in a place to meet the needs of female gamers, but in order for them to get support the consumers (male and female gamers) have to be willing to change their tastes and what they are expecting. This doesn't mean they need to expect a worse game, but that they are going to get a different experience than they may be used to. If they don't want that experience, it's not beneficial to call them names and browbeat them, you have to instead educate as to why that point-of-view is relevant. That is why I believe that it's the consumers changing that will lead to a lasting improvement of the industry, because if the consumers are better educated they are better able to then respond to support their hobby when questioned by "outsiders".

This means that some folks are going to have to boycott big publishers, even if they're making games they like, and educate both their neighbors and congresscritters that the consumers of video games are mature enough to keep self-regulating.

That's the biggest insult to injury of all, you see? They aren't just trying to regulate video games because of their content, but because the market has shown that gamer will cave to and revel in the exploitation. They see the problem as not being able to be solved internal to the game industry because none of us are championing maturity in what we're supporting. They see us being unable to help ourselves, so they want to introduce laws and censorship because they don't think we have the maturity to make those decisions. They see us dithering about, contemplating chicken-egg, instead of taking the mature route and just owning our role and making the change in ourselves.

So that is why I would push for education. That is why I blame the consumer. That is why I see banging the gongs of sexism missing the point, because the industry as a whole has bigger problems than gender parity. We're on the brink of losing control of the very medium we love so dearly, and while sexism is certainly a part of it, I believe the solution requires more personal involvement than folks seem willing to commit to.

?Indie developers are in a place to meet the needs of female gamers?

Stop perpetuating this myth that female characters are only for female gamers, or only appreciated by them. It's baseless nonsense. Female player-characters are good for all gamers, not in the pursuit of gender parity, but in and of themselves.

It's just a MYTH, developers have pulled this ?fact? out the the ether that a female lead in their game will destroy it's sales due to the majority male market's refusal to consider a game for that above all else.

To hell with boycotts, there is too much interference in the system for those to work, the publishers can't tell if a game is failing because it didn't comply with boycott demands or because they didn't do something else. Again, the problem is the publishers are too god damn stupid, it's not that they have low-IQ, it's that they are wrapped up in their own little detached world of thinking about the situation.

You are pushing for education over an imaginary problem!

 

[Treblaine]

The form of sexual objectification relevant is a game having female characters who are poorly established and so able to be appreciated on the basis of their looks and sexuality only.

Player input is undeniably conducive to objectification. However, it is worth noting that a great deal of the narrative in RPGs takes place in the mind of the player. In other character driven games the character usually exists (in part) beyond the control of the player; there are cut-scenes and dialog which the player does not choose. When playing character driven games I don?t consider my character an embodiment myself in any way. I play out the narrative much as I would a gamebook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook) but I suspect I am in the minority there.

To establish for game characters an original position of being objects is to overestimate the differences between games and other representations of life. In a game world characters are not merely pixels. Games are representations of reality; they are often surreal or fantastic but they always have some semblance of real life. This is true of films, novels, and even drawings. How you come to that representation is irrelevant; an end product that contains a woman either sexually objectifies her or it doesn't.

On "poorly established", I think we should be wary as we don't want to turn games into mini "feature movies" and forget to be games. We've had over 100 years to refine exposition and character development with film techniques mainly by controlling the audience from their passive position. Thousands of years if we include theatre (and I think we should). You can literally buy books on the stuff. But this is trying to be a GAME.

Looks are important, and I don't think most people would seen the little girl in Last of Us is sexual terms.

Player input is undeniably conducive to objectification.

I'm not denying it, I'm refuting it. Of course it's undeniable, such an issue deserves more than a denial. It certainly isn't irrefutable.

That's the thing, games are able to so easily and so EXTENSIVELY transcend between the real world and the fictional. It's not that the real world and fictional are confused, what I mean is we are able to dive into this world through the agency we have with these characters, in a kind of avatar like incarnation. And what the character does independently is like relinquishing inhibitions, as if their sub-consious speaking, just saying things automatically.

Like how it can work for playing an FPS game and your playable character says to an NPC in the game "what is this place", it's something you might automatically ask without actively initiating it.

Yes, they are representations of reality, but they are still - technically - object within a world. I don't think it is fair for Jim to attack developers for struggling to overcome this technical limitation by how they limit what there NPCs can and do do. Like the girl in Last of Us, he takes pot shots at how she has simplistic interaction... but that's a game that strives constantly to make her a real rounded character when in fact it's a polygon model controlled essentially by an unfeeling robot... and if you do the wrong thing s

This is like someone attacking drawing of a woman and a man, then that someone points at at the woman in the picture (but not the man) "why isn't she moving! your drawing has just turned her into an object for your amusement!" missing how that's inherent to a drawing and the man isn't moving either.

 

[WindKnight]

I have seen far more frivolous feminist bashing and straw feminising than I have seen feminists making frivolous and misplaced complaints blowing things out of proportion.

Ironic, considering blowing things out of proportion is exactly what you just did. You don't see it happening simply because you don't want to see it. Try taking the blinders of your eyes next time and then you will see it. It happens quite a lot.

please, give me an actual example, and not something some guy said on a forum, or Rush Limbaugh told you on his talkshow or some tv show said they did.

I've seen plenty of examples on this forums where posters have rushed in to declare the feminists are causing trouble when the geuss what - no-one has said anything or made the complaints the bashers have said they did. I've seen several threads where you can see feminist bashers itching to start a fight, but trying to play the evil harpy straw feminist card so they look like victims instead of instigators.

In your original post I quoted, you claimed that female protagonists have to be 'perfect' or the feminists start whining, that they will jump on any point and start screaming 'sexism!'. That is patently not true and I gave an example where your claims are false. You have not provided one example where they are true.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Am I the only one who gets a little uncomfortable when people use the term(s) creepy, creeper and etc.? Like, I just know that looking like I do I get that label even more than I see and hear. Seeing others being judged like that to further an argument just makes my blood boil. Of course, I can't watch the video, but normally even the JQ episodes that seem like they will piss me off end up quite well reasoned, so I'm sure actually watching the video would put to rest my doubts.

 

[Fiairflair]

Again, this term is inherently problematic for how it was coined in criticism of media like Film and print ads, it is subverted to the point of losing all significance in games as an art form from how integral the player's agency is in the story acting through the player-character, as an essential design element. It doesn't take account of subjectivity, the importance of player input in the narrative mode.

With regard to player input I suspect we've come full circle and are now in fierce agreement. Indeed, when I described player input as conducive to objectification I was making a concession to your earlier point (above).

I think we should be wary as we don't want to turn games into mini "feature movies" and forget to be games.

Yes, it would be a sad thing if, in making the narratives of games better, developers reduce or diminish gameplay.

Yes, they are representations of reality, but they are still - technically - object within a world. I don't think it is fair for Jim to attack developers for struggling to overcome this technical limitation by how they limit what there NPCs can and do do. Like the girl in Last of Us, he takes pot shots at how she has simplistic interaction... but that's a game that strives constantly to make her a real rounded character when in fact it's a polygon model controlled essentially by an unfeeling robot... and if you do the wrong thing s
This is like someone attacking drawing of a woman and a man, then that someone points at at the woman in the picture (but not the man) "why isn't she moving! your drawing has just turned her into an object for your amusement!" missing how that's inherent to a drawing and the man isn't moving either.

The flaw in this analogy is that the man in the picture is not like male characters in video games. In the case of the drawing the person complains about how a woman is portrayed when the portrayal of both people is comparable in quality. In video game males and females are frequently portrayed not just differently but with unequal effort. Imagine if the woman were a stick figure and the man resembled Rembrandt's polish rider.

There are two main issues that this video has raised. Firstly, the under-representation of female protagonists in gaming. Secondly, the ways in which female characters are portrayed in games. The first is empirically demonstrable and judging by other comments you've made I expect you agree. In relation to the second I want to say no more or less than this: there is inequality in many video games between the character development given to females and males. Males in games frequently have more intricate and complex personalities than their female counterparts. This is both regrettable and worth discussing in the hope of encouraging change.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

When the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying arm of the video game industry tells the rest of the world that forty-seven percent of gamers within the United States are women, but then actual industry that finances the ESA behaves in such a manner that would cause any sane, skeptically-minded and rational observer to question whether or not the validity of those particular statistics are as crooked as a dog's hind leg, then one has to weigh up the likelihood of one of two scenarios.

That forty-seven percent of gamers are women, despite the video game industry's behaviour.

Or that the notion that forty-seven percent of all video gamers are women is as near enough to a blatant lie as to qualify statistics from the Entertainment Software Association for awards normally reserved for works of complete fiction.

 

[eberhart]

If they wanted an easy job they wouldn't have become game designers now would they?

What's the point in making your job harder on purpose? The audience that is already invested in specific type of games is better than chasing mythical audience that in reality translates to eg. 18% people who even bothered with female ME protagonist. Obviously, competing for the audience of "brown fps games", carries own issues, but they are free to select the type of crap they want to deal with

Besides, writers seem to have no issue writing aliens, are you really saying that women are more foreign and hard to write than say.......every alien race ever.

Except that aliens do not complain about "unrealistic and specie-ist image of Salarians and Chiss" so we have no way of judging a degree of "antropomorphism" (scratch that, pretend I used some version of "heteronormativity" ^^)those flawed portrayals include. Though I guess that also means losing access to a tasty controversy that can at least keep people talking about your game for one more unimportant reason.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

When the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying arm of the video game industry tells the rest of the world that forty-seven percent of gamers within the United States are women, but then actual industry that finances the ESA behaves in such a manner that would cause any sane, skeptically-minded and rational observer to question whether or not the validity of those particular statistics are as crooked as a dog's hind leg, then one has to weigh up the likelihood of one of two scenarios.

That forty-seven percent of gamers are women, despite the video game industry's behaviour.

Or that the notion that forty-seven percent of all video gamers are women is as near enough to a blatant lie as to qualify statistics from the Entertainment Software Association for awards normally reserved for works of complete fiction.

I believe it's the latter, mate.

http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp

ESRB reckon it's 40%, but also reckon 80% of those women are primarily wii players... and wii owners don't but too many games. Then there's the possibility that they're factoring in social, iphone and facebook games(like I've seen some do), then the stats would be irredeemably bad.

Not intending to make any points about what qualifies as a "gamer". But people playing wii-sports and bejewelled aren't necessarily the crowd that's going to buy "The last of us" or whatever, so those numbers probably shouldn't be trotted out.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp

ESRB reckon it's 40%, but also reckon 80% of those women are primarily wii players... and wii owners don't but too many games. Then there's the possibility that they're factoring in social, iphone and facebook games(like I've seen some do), then the stats would be irredeemably bad.

Not intending to make any points about what qualifies as a "gamer". But people playing wii-sports and bejewelled aren't necessarily the crowd that's going to buy "The last of us" or whatever, so those numbers probably shouldn't be trotted out.

Exactly.

I would like to sincerely know when it became not alright for anyone who isn't comfortable with gender-bending into the role of a woman who is on the verge of helping herself to a great big & steaming helping of cock, or having their cock sucked by Jim Sterling for that matter (Jim's tits are probably more far luscious then any female character design that has been designed to be taken seriously.), to be not comfortable with it or more importantly than that, to not be comfortable paying for that. If people don't see what is wrong with trying to shame people into doing and paying for something they are not comfortable with doing, then I cannot help them.

And using homophobia to try and sell his argument? That was, is and will always be sleazy as all fuck.

 

[Darthbawls77]

Im a 27 straight male thats been playing video games since I was 2 and I switch between male and female characters all the time and could care less what sex they are. When they say males only play males they must be talking for themselves cause even with my other male friends who game this has never been a topic because we never felt it needed to be. I think people these days are too sensitive and need to calm down for real.

Yeah, I've seen a number of males play as females all the time. If given a choice I like to pick an avatar that resembles me but if not I don't really care.

I think the main opposition to this one was that she was a girl as much as that she has a relationship in the game. So the question takes it a step further. If you role play as a girl are you ok with your character getting some action from a guy? As I said earlier, I'd posit that guys spent all of the early Tomb Raider franchize mentally undressing Lara and a sex scene would have just been an opportunity to see her undress moreso than insult them in some way where their avatar is doing something that they wouldn't.

As a straight male I would love for Lara to make out with another hot chick lol, but to be honest I wouldnt mind if she got some from a guy either cause that happens too. I guess as long as it is done right and doesnt seem forced and badly written or executed I'd be fine with it. It kinda reminds me of porn cause although girl on girl is always good I would say my average video is between a man and a women. I guess as long as I see some boobies Im happy but thats talking for me of course. And for my gay brothers out there I wouldnt mind playing a male lead in a game that was gay as well.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp

ESRB reckon it's 40%, but also reckon 80% of those women are primarily wii players... and wii owners don't but too many games. Then there's the possibility that they're factoring in social, iphone and facebook games(like I've seen some do), then the stats would be irredeemably bad.

Not intending to make any points about what qualifies as a "gamer". But people playing wii-sports and bejewelled aren't necessarily the crowd that's going to buy "The last of us" or whatever, so those numbers probably shouldn't be trotted out.

Exactly.

I would like to sincerely know when it became not alright for anyone who isn't comfortable with gender-bending into the role of a woman who is on the verge of helping herself to a great big & steaming helping of cock, or having their cock sucked by Jim Sterling for that matter (Jim's tits are probably more far luscious then any female character design that has been designed to be taken seriously.), to be not comfortable with it or more importantly than that, to not be comfortable paying for that. If people don't see what is wrong with trying to shame people into doing and paying for something they are not comfortable with doing, then I cannot help them.

And using homophobia to try and sell his argument? That was, is and will always be sleazy as all fuck.

Agree fully. It irked the fuck out of me when the quote mining for misogyny bizarre-as-fuck witch-hunt thing was happening too. Exactly what qualifies these people to so liberally levy these accusations against people? I think it's pretty shitty and you could make the argument that it's irresponsible too. It's certainly not the behaviour of thoughtful, level-headed people, which is how those people seem to see themselves.

All of these products are opt-in propositions. Usually when someone is being negative about a game, or a film, or... whatever, that's met with "don't fucking buy it then" which is a perfectly sound course of action. Apart from in this instance, when apparently that's both not acceptable and massively bigoted.

Can't please everyone.

 

[dyre]

I'm pretty sure this is just publishers being stupid. The other reasons are just absurd. Male gamers feel uncomfortable playing women? They feel gay when their female protagonist has a relationship with another guy? That doesn't make any sense at all. It's like, a paradox of role playing. On the one hand, you're getting into the role well enough to care about the character's relationships. On the other hand, you can't roleplay well enough to realize that her sexual preferences might be different from your own??

I think a more likely explanation is that publishers find that the best sellers in gaming are the testosterone-fueled shooters, so they assume the protagonists of those sorts of games will be preferred in all games.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

It irked the fuck out of me when the quote mining for misogyny bizarre-as-fuck witch-hunt thing was happening too. Exactly what qualifies these people to so liberally levy these accusations against people?

A liberal arts degree?

I think it's pretty shitty and you could make the argument that it's irresponsible too. It's certainly not the behaviour of thoughtful, level-headed people, which is how those people seem to see themselves.

There is a difference between behaving like a thoughtful, level-headed person, and presenting your opinion in the firm belief that a thoughtful, level-headed person couldn't disagree with either your point, or your methods.

All of these products are opt-in propositions. Usually when someone is being negative about a game, or a film, or... whatever, that's met with "don't fucking buy it then" which is a perfectly sound course of action. Apart from in this instance, when apparently that's both not acceptable and massively bigoted.

While the big video game publishers might have very good & solid reasons behind not financing what I'm about to suggest, I do think that the medium suffers terribly from not having an equivalent to taking a franchise direct-to-DVD. From my perspective I don't see any reason why the next title in the Dead Space franchise couldn't have been budgeted to reflect what the next game was likely to earn instead of cancelling it because it just couldn't earn what EA had expected it to earn.

But then I'm neither a publisher or a developer. But again, from my point of view it just seems like a waste.

 

[Celador]

And using homophobia to try and sell his argument? That was, is and will always be sleazy as all fuck.

He did not imply that people who are not comfortable playing female characters are homophobic. He did however imply that people preferring beefy male hunks with huge weapons are probably latent homosexuals or at least sexually frustrated. He wasn't trying to shame such people he was simply making fun of them.

He was not trying to "sell" any arguments either. He pointed out that there are gender inequality issues in the game industry without putting a blame on anybody specifically.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

And using homophobia to try and sell his argument? That was, is and will always be sleazy as all fuck.

He did not imply that people who are not comfortable playing female characters are homophobic. He did however imply that people preferring beefy male hunks with huge weapons are probably latent homosexuals or at least sexually frustrated. He wasn't trying to shame such people he was simply making fun of them.

I don't know exactly what planet you're from.

The one where I'm from however, when one man tells another that he's being insecure about taking on the role of a woman who is actively seeking sex from a male partner, and then goes on to tease that same man with a joke that relies heavily on an understanding of outdated and medically unsound Freudian pop-psychology about how liking anything vaguely masculine means they have a deep buried desire to pound other men up the butt, and then tops it all off with a standing offer to suck the insecurity out of him through his cock like a drinking straw, that man is trying to utilise homophobia to make his point.

We're all presumably grown adults here. We all know Jim isn't going to attend gaming convention, after gaming convention, doggedly lurking the halls slurping the straight right out of frightened heterosexual men like some sort of big gay vampire. But if his intention was to communicate anything beyond the point of you're a homosexual if you don't want to dress up in drag and have sex with a man, it was lost on me.

 

[Celador]

it was lost on me.

This is actually what i was thinking before writing a post. "Yet another point wasted on (some of) escapist audience".

It wasn't about homophobia, masculinity (or lack thereof) or about sucking cocks at gaming conventions. It was about gender inequality, misrepresentation and/or underrepresentation of womens in games. Those are the points i got from the video. His style of presenting his viewpoints and the way he mocks some of the stereotypically insecure gamers got almost nothing to do with the main message of the video.

He did not shame anybody for being homophobic, and while i don't see anything wrong with "Freudian pop-psychology" which often proves to be relevant when sexuality/gender roles are being discussed - this isn't what that video was all about. The victim in this case isn't you or anybody else who's "uncomfortable" playing female character. The victim is... a female character. Its that simple.