Journalist Tells Industry To Grow Up

Booze Zombie

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I hear a woman moaning, is something else on?
Ah, swimsuits... swimsuits.

Books have their sex and unnesary violence, why should video games be different? Hell, even The Beatles did a song called "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".
 

Maze1125

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Lockedup said:
Games are supposed to be an escape from reality. You WANT to feel like you're built like 10 brick s$%thouses and are carving corridors through hordes of enemies and you WANT your female protagonists to be slim, attractive women. YES, ATTRACTIVE! I'm sorry that it doesn't truly represent 'real life'....but that's the point....IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO.
And that's precisely her point.

When people watch a film, it's to experience a story.
When people listen to music, it's for the emotions being portrayed.
When people play a game it's for "blam blam, boobs and guns!!!"

Of course it's not as clear cut as that, but in general the point stands.
Yeah, games could just stay as pure escapism, or they could become a fantastic art form in their own right.
 

TheEvilDuck

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TheGreenManalishi said:
Am I sexist for thinking: "she's female, she probably doesn't 'get' the gaming industry?". I don't think thats my genuine attitude, but that was my knee-jerk response to seeing her name.
Yes.

And I see where she's coming from, but she's taking it to an extreme. It's certainly no way to get your point across or win friends. (Also NPR FTW :3)
 

li-ion

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I think she has some valid points. Her way of presenting them might not the best but I guess that's how you get most publicity.

Quite often I found myself wondering why every game in the spotlight seems to be about armored space marines killing aliens, other space marines or nazis in space. Yes, there are games that have depth and are mature, but they seem to have a hard time grabbing the spotlight and are quite rare anyway. When seeing a game trailer being 'mature' this can be easily translated with 'tons of blood and female characters look like melons sticked to a lamppost' these days.

So I agree that game designers should grow up and try something new, not the next space marine killing aliens or the next WW2-shooter etc. Picturing game protagonists (both male and female) in a way that they seem like normal persons might help as well.

TheGreenManalishi said:
Am I sexist for thinking: "she's female, she probably doesn't 'get' the gaming industry?".
Yes, you are.

Lios said:
See one-See all logic. It makes me want to beat people up. Like this person.
Apparently she's in game journalism for 8 years. I think she saw more games than bikini squad. How about you read (and think) what she's actually talking about before having the urge to beat someone? Right now you're the one with 'see one see all'-logic.
 

MiracleOfSound

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Jan 3, 2009
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Fuck this right in its ear. It's a ridiculous argument.

Games are like any other medium, there are high brow and low brow ones.

You don't see people criticising the movie busines of being in danger of dying due to the plans for another Fast and the Furious movie...

As for me, I'm in my late 20s and yes, I like to shoot the funny aliens and bad guys with my space guns and live in a state of arrested development and look at boobs. I'm sure some of the most intelligent , mature intellectuals in the world love boobs and explosions.
 

Noone From Nowhere

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Isn't what she's complaining about primarily a matter of visual and interactive preference? Playing house with virtual dollies in the Sims is no more mature than mowing down hordes of aliens with polygonal action figures so it isn't a strict gameplay related gripe.
If she just wants videogames to shift towards delivery systems for sophisticated interactive stories, she could have said so without the condemnation.
I doubt that she would have the same unkind words for the perenial erotic fantasy weaving art of Romantice Noveling for both girls and women or their televised equivalents. No,' Twilight'(in whatever form)is just peachy, I'm sure.
 

TheGreenManalishi

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li-ion said:
TheGreenManalishi said:
Am I sexist for thinking: "she's female, she probably doesn't 'get' the gaming industry?".
Yes, you are.
I argue that I'm not, but knee-jerk reaction to seeing more complaints about video game culture in the media and from a female journalist lead to that response from me. If you quoted the rest of my post, you'd make me sound like less of a misogynist. I admit that it is a sexist thing to think, but I in no way devalue her opinion as a games journalist because she's a woman.
 

li-ion

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TheGreenManalishi said:
I argue that I'm not, but knee-jerk reaction to seeing more complaints about video game culture in the media and from a female journalist lead to that response from me. If you quoted the rest of my post, you'd make me sound like less of a misogynist. I admit that it is a sexist thing to think, but I in no way devalue her opinion as a games journalist because she's a woman.
That's interesting in a way.
A short check with google showed me that she is apparently a games journalist for 8 years and wrote a book about the video game industry (smartbomb, linked in the OP) which was not bashing games as far as I can tell.

So, if you would have read that a guy told the developers at GDC that they are juvenile and should grow up, would your gut reaction have been:
"he's male, he probably doesn't 'get' the gaming industry?"
No? Talking about sexism then? If you attack her arguments it's fine, if you attack her because she's a woman and might not get 'it' its sexism.

Anyway: you are not the only one bashing her for being female as far as I can tell. The word 'feminist' has also been used in a rather negative manner already. One of the best ones so far:
Anonymouse said:
To put it as harshly and crudely as I can, This "journalist" just sounds like a fracking femnazi *****. [...] Plant the ***** in front of Final Fantasy VII, [...] Until then she can get back in the kitchen and make me a goddamn sandwich!
I have to admit that made it hard for me to take your post serious, but I give it a shot:
But I ask you how movies are any better or music for that matter. We are now flooded by non stop bullshit movies with the exact same thing and music has been about barely legal bitches in spandex lip syncing to someone elses music for years.
Didn't the games industry make more money already than the movie industry? But the movie industry has beside the obvious Michael Bay-blockbuster still enough movies that don't require your brain to shut down. With games: not so much. You mention Final Fantasy VII and VIII which might ok (even though I personally never gotten into it but nevermind) but Jericho? Seriously? How does Jericho come anywhere close to the Citizen Kane of video games (exaggerating of course)?

My point is that the focus in games is rarely the story. The focus is still on gameplay, which is fine, and most developers like to mention how the graphics and sound are awesome and the gameplay is great and... oh yeah, there is also some storyline...

If you don't know it, please take a look at 'Video Games and Storytelling' by Daniel Floyd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jdG2LHair0&feature=related

Games have the potential to be great storytelling tools but most of the times they don't live up to it. Most of the time they are outright juvenile and sexist (I mean the stereotypes about both women and men in video games). And I'm sorry but I find the manly space marine who only talks in form of one-liners not that intriguing. It would be nice to see more games with interesting story or even a message beyond 'killing aliens is cool'. When you ask me what games I played had great gameplay or enjoyable combat mechanics I can write a long list. If you ask me how many games I played had a really good storyline that sucked me in? Uhm... oh... not that much.
 

Lios

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li-ion said:
Lios said:
See one-See all logic. It makes me want to beat people up. Like this person.
Apparently she's in game journalism for 8 years. I think she saw more games than bikini squad. How about you read (and think) what she's actually talking about before having the urge to beat someone? Right now you're the one with 'see one see all'-logic.
How so? Do you even know what the logic is? I assume you're just here to create arguments because you have nothing better to do, because you know not what the see-one see-all logic is. If she's been in the gaming journalism industry for 8 years, chances are she isn't very subjective to change and just dislikes how games are made nowadays.

A crapload of people think the gaming industry is dying nowadays. Even I thought so, but then I took another look and saw that we continue to rise into an increasingly more beautiful golden age of gaming. When you take a second look and think on a different perspective than your own, you tend to change your mind.
 

Rolling 20

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Maze1125 said:
Lockedup said:
Games are supposed to be an escape from reality. You WANT to feel like you're built like 10 brick s$%thouses and are carving corridors through hordes of enemies and you WANT your female protagonists to be slim, attractive women. YES, ATTRACTIVE! I'm sorry that it doesn't truly represent 'real life'....but that's the point....IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO.
And that's precisely her point.

When people watch a film, it's to experience a story.
When people listen to music, it's for the emotions being portrayed.
When people play a game it's for "blam blam, boobs and guns!!!"

Of course it's not as clear cut as that, but in general the point stands.
Yeah, games could just stay as pure escapism, or they could become a fantastic art form in their own right.
As much as some may hope for it, video gaming is unlikely to become an 'art form'. And even if it did, it wouldn't be appreciated as such. You're right, she may be arguing that, but she has fond a way to turn an innocent truth such as that into an insult. Gaming IS totally make believe and we WANT the tits and violence and she says it shouldn't be anything other and we SUCK as a result (a bit changed, but yeah, you get the point).

Meh, my opinion is just my opinion. She's right, and she's wrong at the same time...kind of hard to describe what I mean and my dinner has arrived =P
 

antipunt

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Aren't developers simply making stuff they think that will sell? I don't really see how that's their 'fault'
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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Musicfreak said:
Chaplin needs to play some better games, There are plenty of games out there with mature themes. You may need to wade through some crap to get to them but it's the same with every other medium.
That's part of the problem though. You don't have to "wade through the crap" to find good examples of music as art, or movies as art. There are most definitely good (in the definition of being wholesome, while also being entertaining) games out there, but nobody knows about them. Even most gamers don't know about them. And when the community at large barely knows about them, how can we expect outsiders to consider them?
 

Manji187

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Whahah...Dom looking for his wife... Cardboard drama dumped into the game for the sole reason of being able to say: "Look at the emotional depth!.. sob ....LOCUST!!!! BANG BANG BANG...".

It would've been funny if it weren't so sad.

Yeah....the industry definitely needs to grow up...FAST...before FPS will be the only game in town.
 

Fire Daemon

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Dec 18, 2007
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I guess that she makes some valid points, I guess, but I just find myself not giving a shit anymore. All of this 'the industry is filled with retarded adolescent man-children hybrid abominations' got pretty fucking old pretty fucking fast when it first started to appear and time has not helped.

Nearly every single person who has said that games are too focused on the male audience are not game developers, they're journalists and authors who talk about video games rather than create them and while journalists have an influence over the market they never have as strong an influence as the people who create the content for the market, the game developers. Nobody has a greater influence in the shape of gaming, nobody. If Heather Chaplin and her ilk want change to occur than they should do something themselves, not ***** about it over the Internet.

Imagine if someone wanted corn but all the nearby farmers had been growing wheat for generations and didn't see any reason to change as it would be difficult and they probably wont be able to do it. What would be the best option to get corn in this instance? ***** to the farmers and call them wheat-tarded for their refusal to grow corn or, grow the corn yourself and in time eat as much of it as you can? Chaplin is the person that will ***** to the farmers and demand things exist to her specifications and as a result she isn't achieving anything and just makes herself look like an idiot.

It can be difficult to create games and even more difficult to create influential games, it can be very daunting to make a studio or even getting a solo project off the ground but if she actually gave a shit she would get her hands dirty and do some actual work. You can't change anything by shouting from sidelines, you need to get involved for things to happen.

Because Chaplin and everyone like her are all to happy to tell developers what to do without actually doing anything themselves I find it very hard to take anything they say seriously.
 

luckshot

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well since the producers want the developers to make things the customers want, maybe her ire should be directed at us customers, but as others have said i don't play games because i am mature.

i play games to have fun, some times it's mindless fun or nothing but a male power fantasy (heaven forbid i have a power fantasy), sometimes it's deep and thought provoking

my question to her is what she has against people enjoying a fantasy outside of drugs
 

Brandon237

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Hey, at least star wars games aren't misogynistic, and there are genuinely good games out there, however many use games for escapism, that is why I hate realistic cover-based shooters, I want to either feel completely out of the game or completely immersed. (this brings us the Prototype to KotORII scale). She is just playing too many overly generic games.
 

Noxshadow

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Jan 12, 2010
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I'm reminded of Yahtzee's "For all my banging on the 'games are art' drum, art is only as good as the culture that surrounds it."
It's easy to see some sexist overtones in her statements, but I don't really feel that that's a line of reasoning that holds up under speculation., I feel that she should be criticizing how self-absorbed the game journalism world is, instead of it's immaturity.
I'm wondering why she was assigned to cover games. When you're covering a sub-culture, you don't hire someone from the mainstream go investigate, you hire someone within the culture to tell you what's going on.