Poll: Should Writer/Creators feel shame for Sexualization?
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Should Writer/Creators feel shame for Sexualization?
Oh glob, I fucking hope not... That doesn't sound right at all!!
But "more" seriously, let these Creators/Writers do whatever they fuck they want, in terms of sexualization... I mean, it can't be "fanservice" if they don't have any [established] fans to begin with or, especially, if they're only doing it for themselves... Maybe I'm not "mature" enough to truly see it as sometimes being a soulless endeavor or something like that, but as long as no one's getting hurt [physically], at least, then the only thing we can do is keep encouraging those that are willing to sexualize something that's "rarely" touched upon as well as making sure none of these Creators/Writers does something that, in terms, inadvertently censors their own creative "limitations" in a way that they, themselves, didn't choose to "dictate" in the first place...
Then again, I don't care what these Creators/Writers do in the long run as long as they don't have to do something they don't feel like doing overall...
Oh glob, I fucking hope not... That doesn't sound right at all!!
But "more" seriously, let these Creators/Writers do whatever they fuck they want, in terms of sexualization... I mean, it can't be "fanservice" if they don't have any [established] fans to begin with or, especially, if they're only doing it for themselves... Maybe I'm not "mature" enough to truly see it as sometimes being a soulless endeavor or something like that, but as long as no one's getting hurt [physically], at least, then the only thing we can do is keep encouraging those that are willing to sexualize something that's "rarely" touched upon as well as making sure none of these Creators/Writers does something that, in terms, inadvertently censors their own creative "limitations" in a way that they, themselves, didn't choose to "dictate" in the first place...
Then again, I don't care what these Creators/Writers do in the long run as long as they don't have to do something they don't feel like doing overall...
None of which is specifically relevant because as I myself pointed out exceptions do exist. Exceptions however do not make the rule. I also said a bit more about the movement than just that, but I get the impression it's just more of your own laziness.grassgremlin said:
See, basically you can sit there and say "this is not what the movement is, we represent this huge majority of people trying to force changes on an obstinate minority" and even convince yourself it's true, but that doesn't make it reality, and that's really the whole problem here. Internet feminist crusades tend to try and present themselves as the vanguard of some kind of social reform that just hasn't hit this little corner of things yet, when really they are misguided or just causing trouble. See it's not women that really have a problem with the way women are portrayed in video games, I mean most of this is the kinds of stuff they would create themselves (or do) and just like what they read about in novels and such if they are general genera fans. It's a very specific group of people that want to try and create an issue where there isn't one.... and that's why it goes nowhere, since the gaming industry kind of knows what the majority actually is, being careful to only cater to the largest demographics. Basically the people who like things like "Bayonetta" aren't a tiny, nerdy, fringe, they are among the biggest groups out there hence why it goes to sequel land. For all the complaints Team Ninja's model keeps them making money and a well known developer (we've all heard of them) so why should they change? Rather the people who want more conservatism and/or social sensitivity from games are the fringe minority, just a very vocal one, and are pretty much persistant in their own way like say me and my fellow turn based RPG nerds. If the games industry every starts releasing more games on a professional level, then yes there will probably be games made alongside the others that fit more in line with what SJWs and feminists want as it is a pretty loud majority, you'll probably see "Conservatively Dressed Action Girl" out there right alongside Bayonetta, 40 pounds overweight, middle aged, and in a sagging sweatsuit, or whatever you'd consider reasonable to the body image you want to look at, but that won't happen until the gaming industry moves further away from the "only AAA titles, and only those titles in general that can bring in the biggest demographics". Face it, your going to get more interest in, and move more units of these games to both men and women than a game following these alleged feminist principles. As I've pointed out, you'll notice girls like a lot of these characters enough to run around cosplaying as them and stuff, it's not like this environment of hostility against women, with female gamers and fangirls feeling like they are undersiege actually exists. You hear rants about it online, but other than that it's pretty much non-existent.
You should feel shitty for poorly expressing the libido and sexuality of a being like a juvenile fucking twerp yes. DOA as a clear example, fucking high level fighting game there, doesn't even need the tits ass and shallow character story attempts. The game is fucking solid on its own merits, you waste money effort and focus on this excess and it makes me feel like you think so shallowly of me, that I must see a carnal invitation to be here. Worse it makes me feel like you lack faith in your core game and the marketing skills of your team, don't know how to get around to people and appeal to them? give them some honkers to stare at,beefcakes all around! It is boring drivel that infuriates me to no end, worse are the nunb nuts who think this is what most of that gender are or should be like and it warps their view, not all the time but unfortunately it happens. If I wanted porn while I play my video game, I DO HAVE A MULTI SCREEN SET-UP YOU KNOW.
This is a "no right answer" question. Each case is different, as it depends less in the character looks, and more in its goal (pandering? Message? Artistic concept? Throw back to nostalgic tropes?) Even our Escapist's SJW (MovieBob) said that there are valid points in both sides when it comes to empowered sexualized female fighters.
Where did I say anything about fanservice material holding back the medium? I'm pretty sure I have said in the past that trying to silence criticism, or commentary by reviewers from a culture criticism standpoint is a disservice to the medium, or holding it back. If you're going to start off with strawmanning me, I don't see this going well for discussion value.Batou667 said:
A couple of other things. First, I am not above criticising porn. I'm pretty sure I've done it on this very website. Not because porn is what it is, but for the way it's often shot that I find dehumanizing to the actors and actresses in it. Also, you pretty much answer your own question as to why your two examples don't affect their entire medium by association. Porn and poorly written erotica are niches, porn being restricted to adults, and stuff like 50 shades (adult romance fiction) being about 13% of the market [http://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=580].
To use a hypothetical example, if 90% of the market has iusses with this problematic material, and I want less of that and more of something else, then that is diversifying the medium.
I can do both. As I am not calling for a ban on anything, having less of one thing and more of other stuff doesn't mean there is less diversity, so long as the thing there is less of still exists.
It's going to keep being discussed until devs and publishers start listening. And how is critical analyses detracting from the games? If you see a reviewer that leans towards this kind of commentary, and you don't like it, find a reviewer that sticks to talking about game mechanics.
If money is all they understand, then all the more reason to get louder about this until they start feeling it effect their bottom line.
You don't want to go down that road with me dude, let's keep this on topic and off gg. And if you have a case to make about why this isn't worth arguing for, then make it. Don't just tell me 'there are better causes out there', because I am perfectly capable of arguing for that too, I have 24 hours in a day.
No strawman intended; I inferred your stance from this quote:Jux said:
As for the second point - are you saying that games with sexualised / sexist content aren't also a niche subset of games in general? If so, do you have anything to back that up?
If you're identifying certain games as "problematic" then you're de facto arguing from a standpoint that would favour them being removed and supplanted with something else. That's not increasing diversity, that's simply shifting the paradigm closer to your own preferences. An argument that promotes Y by making a case for the inferiority of X is NOT an argument for X and Y to coexist. Isn't that completely, utterly obvious?Jux said:
I mis-spoke somewhat there, because I assumed Jim's video was a review, when actually it was a ed/op piece. But without wishing to be too snarky, couldn't the line about "if you don't like it, stick to the stuff you do like" apply to the people complaining about sexualised games?Jux said:
Why not simply support the franchises you feel "do it right" by buying their games, and decline to buy the games that you don't like? If enough people did that, the market would change to meet the demand.Jux said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that as for-profit businesses, publishers are well and truly speaking the language of money. Buying, or not buying, a game is the strongest message you could possibly send. Sure, they also listen to fan feedback (because future money) and try to avoid controversy or lawsuits (because lost money), but they'll overwhelmingly listen to the people who are handing over the cash. How seriously do you suppose Rockstar took the calls for its depictions of women to be changed, given it's sold in excess of 35 million copies and generated well in excess of $2bn? "Sorry, I can't hear you, due to all this MONEY in my ears!"
To paraphrase something Sleekit posted a while back before dropping off the face of R+P: for gaming to be inclusive, all we need is a diversity of games and the freedom to choose. That's it. Any demands we make of the industry on top of that are simply unrealistic and possibly unfair.
I'm pretty invested in the idea of the medium "growing up", and to allow that to happen we need to step back and stop treating it as a political football.
I wasn't clear then. I don't think it's holding back the medium, but I do think that less relative to the whole is better, if only because I find most fanservice stuff to be pretty sexist.Batou667 said:
Sexualised content is not the same as sexist content. A game can have sexualised content without it being sexist. Conversely, a game can be pretty sexist without being sexualised. Games meant to be sexist (though why someone would aim to do that is beyond me) might be a niche, but you can find plenty of sexist material in games pretty much everywhere. And while I don't have peer reviewed papers on hand to reference (would you even accept that, or just quibble over what they considered sexist?), we could just start going through games ad nauseam if you really want to argue that sexist material is limited to some small corner of gaming.
Says who? I certainly think gaming would be better if there was less of it, but I'm certainly not calling for anything to be done away with completely. Little secret between me and you, but there are plenty of problematic games out there that I still enjoy. Not because of the problematic elements, but in spite of them. I'm perfectly capable of liking something and still admitting that it has some serious flaws.
Sounds like a false dichotomy to me. See above.
I suppose if you think me saying that you should find reviewers whose styles of commentary you like is in any way analogous to you telling me to find games I like and stop complaining about the ones I take issue with, then sure. But in only one of these things is someone being limited in their enjoyment of playing games.
But you know what, I'll take that part about complaining back. Go ahead and keep complaining about the reviewers that tackle games from an angle of social criticism. That's your right. But if you want to show that this sort of commentary detracts from gaming, you'll need something more than 'I don't like it'.
Because part of being a consumer is giving feedback. If I don't buy something, but don't tell them why I didn't buy it, they're going to have no clue as to what they could do to actually get me to buy the next game. And if they choose to ignore my complaints? Oh well. So long as I don't start threatening illegal stuff on them, I'm well within my right to complain, boycott, whatever.
Sure, sexualisation and sexism aren't the same thing, but in practice there's often a large overlap (see: DoA - it's considered sexist largely because of the over-sexualisation).Jux said:
No, no, I'm not here to quibble. I'm actually genuinely interested in finding out whether sex(ism/ualisation) in games is a pervasive issue, or simply a very over-reported issue. Seems to me that a lot of people are entering the discussion already "primed" to see sexism in every poorly-written plot and every half-assed female NPC, while turning a blind eye to equally hackneyed representations of males. And when the accusations of sexism aren't being applied with broad strokes, it's the same few franchises being publicly crucified ad nauseum - DoA is scarcely even relevant as a franchise these days, Dragon's Crown was a niche game, Duke Forever was crude parody that didn't sell too well. The same, few, well-worn footballs are being kicked around to score points.
A while back you might remember I did an analysis of female representation in games, and true enough, there are fewer female avatar options and far fewer female protagonists. The question of whether this is sexist, or what constitutes sexualisation, is of course much more difficult to "number crunch" as it's essentially subjective. But,
...and obviously it's a matter of opinion, since I had people replying straight away that X character is more active than I thought, or Y character is less attractive than Z, or whatever. So, to get a broader consensus, it would have to get put to a vote or survey of some kind. I'm also hoping to add more examples of female characters to get more "data points" for the grid, as I have a suspicion that the points theoretically ought to clump, representing established character tropes (villainess, sidekick, damsel, protagonist, etc). If you can think of any more female characters feel free to PM them to me, I'm aiming for about 100 before I create a survey.Batou667 said:
Cheers
you know what? good for themBathorysGraveland2 said:
no really if they don't want to play it because of that then thats their choice, and a perfectly valid one
because sometimes you know I just get sick of it, and it just kills my motivation to bother with suck a bigass long haul game. "good" characterisation doesn't always cancel it out eather IMO (contrary to what everyone insists) in fact if anything I feel like my intelligence is being insulted even more
[quote/]or have the nerve to be a lesbian.[/quote]
are we talking about actual lesbains or "lesbains as imagined for the male gaze"? because while there is a thin line there's still a distinction
while I wouldn't put it in such language [sub/]because I know better than to tempt my dwindling health bar[/sub] I think there is definitely a sliding scale of "maturity" in how sex/sexuality is shown...Wolfenstein The New order of all games seemed to actually aproach it like grown upsKid Dynomite said:
wolfensten!!!
I'm all for criticizing/analyzing the work for representations of sexualisation so on and so forth.
But going on to attack the author/writer about it personally doesn't do anyone any favors. Unless of course the person in question has a really bad history of poor characterizations of minorities, sexualities, gender, etc. (Like you keep making anti gay films, don't be surprised when people start calling you an anti-gay person.)
With that being said, when people criticize your product, that doesn't mean they are attacking you. I won't do you good in the entertainment industry taking that route.
But going on to attack the author/writer about it personally doesn't do anyone any favors. Unless of course the person in question has a really bad history of poor characterizations of minorities, sexualities, gender, etc. (Like you keep making anti gay films, don't be surprised when people start calling you an anti-gay person.)
With that being said, when people criticize your product, that doesn't mean they are attacking you. I won't do you good in the entertainment industry taking that route.
why not? if an artist makes the decision to aim his game at a specific target audience, then go for it. the reality of things is that the great majority of more serious gamers are male. so if a dev wants to cater to them with fan service, hell yeah, let him make the game he wants. if someone wants to make a game aimed at mixed or female audiences, let them do that. artists should be allowed to create what they want without being shamed into shoehorning an agenda into their work.
*checks privilege*
*checks privilege*
I suppose if anyone does take this as a direct attack, that they can be forgiven in doing so.erttheking said:
A character that has some how managed to touch their imagination, to reach inside their mind and sit there, despite the sexual nature therein is of some worth.
If a person can really enjoy a character enough to wish to defend them, then the creator has done something right, they've made a characters worth talking about, even if they are just a sexual form of the anima/animus, if you like Jungian psyche.
further more,
The unfortunate implication is that lousy shooter mechanics and buggy game play is broken/negligence.
The choice in character design is directly intentional and it's a stylistic/corporate choice and that bring into question the morality of the choice.
The act of placing swinging gonads prominently in place to sell is dubious and should at least be question and should be question along with the necessity of questioning.
I'd argue to the point a character with no personality would and will not be defended because there are so many other targets for lust in life.
And that a fan service manikin will never be a Shakespearean everyman/fool and serve no artistic purpose or really help the audience blow off steam.
Then again you could really use our mordern discomfort of sex to explore it.
A game using over Sexualization in a way to cause discomfort and confuse the audience could be really bloody interesting if done right.
That line about porn being free killed me.grassgremlin said:
It's always been my argument against pandering, then again there is a place to enjoy it in your games themselves.
and really whatever floats you boat as long as you keep it over there, in your room, down the hall and across the block.
that being said i have to ask what i gods name is "male gaze", I've heard the term before but the only time i've heard it is from Diana Davidson.
You, I like your point.The Lunatic said:
If games are art and some games definitely are high art. Then one has to accept the way art works. The way it gives us feelings and makes us think.
That includes things we don't like. Yes you could make a hypersexualized character and..actually make people think about what it means. True in some games it is purely to draw male attention, le sigh! Think nude women mods in skyrim... or that Xblades!
But in some games it does has to make you think "Why does this person wears so little.." and what it means to you.
Maybe this is bovine excrement. But to me there ought to be deeper thinking about things. And sometimes that is worth making something abhorent!
In that "The Evil Within" we see allot of things we don't like. But they do tend to make us think. Or at least feel, or a game like "The Path" which lets be fair has some darker things in it. artsy? a game? At least it makes you think.
And Skyrim, love this game but lets be fair it is a power fantasy. We like it but we ought to understand why we like it. It is a game where you are not ever powerless, unable to stop things from happening. While in some games, like Tombraider, there are scenes where there is stronger powerlessness. And that makes us feel and dislike!
In the end, yeah sometimes I have to Sigh at the portraying of how someone looks. But ya know that tells more about me then about others. In the end my dislike of certain things tells more about me then about the subject at hand.
And this is why I say No, it is good that there are games going that far. Just as there are games that break up our expectations. And games that have actually normal looking characters with actual human problems.
****
I wrote this after sitting with some coffee to think about these matters. A much more fitting post I feel.
On a forum there was a poll followed up by a long string of replies about sexualisation in games. Aka big breasted women wearing little clothes in fighting games. And it did make me think!
What do things mean, if we take games as another form of art. And before you all go like ?look at that high brow chair philosopher?, just stop doing that. If we take games as equal to books, movies, and plays. Then actually is this bad. Should the make of said game feel ashamed?
Now this lead me to think about a few games. Skyrim for instance and its moddibility. Many mods are naked women or mods to remove clothes of women or mods to make the women in the game look hotter. Depending on how you define hot. It is just freaking pixels guys! Of course Skyrim though it has a great story does attracts males quite a bit. Because it is a power fantasy, you are the hero and are going to solve every problem. Oh look at that you can even defeat dragons actually you are THE ONE.
They even expect you to be a nord male at the start, a viking warrior in the shortest of term. How more Arnold Schwarzenegger can you get.
Then there is on the other side of the coin Laura Craft in the new Tomb Raider, there are scenes where she is definitely not in control. And not in a way of ?look the bad guy shows up lets make sure the player knows this guy is bad so lets remove all control from them?. More in a sense of being in very bad situations and yes at times there are the much hated QUICK TIME EVENTS to not get killed.
There this young women is portrayed as having to grow to be strong because the world is dangerous around here. A much more fullfilling hero type. And no she doesn't wears a chainmail bikini and she doesn't either comes with mega memaries. She just is attractive as person because she is a person there. She is written to be an actual person! A person you can care for and hope to get to the end.
Where the hero is skyrim is so empty so ?power fantasy? that you don't care. Actually there are very few characters in Skyrim I care for. Some I like because they are odd but do I care? Nah not really!
And there are also strong female characters out there who yes dress rather skimpy or rather provocative but are strong and use sex as a tool. To make others mostly men do their bidding!
You know I really like books because at least you get a history, a backstory, a why someone acts certain ways. Who is someone, what made them that way... something lacking in the writing of some videogames.
I just watched Interview with a Vampire and I got the book still waiting for me to read it fully. I don't like reading these tiny books, it is one of those ...pocked edition, so it is so small. Font also tends to be smaller and it just reads less nice then a big fat book. A big fat book with nice rounded big letters waiting to be read.
So I don't say that makers of videogames with chainmail bikinis or modmakers with chainmail bikini babes should be ashamed. They use something very basic, very animalistic, our basic animal desire for sex. And if you are a young male that is enough. If you get beyond 30 ? you want a person.
I do definitely hope for more games with very good characters. Ones you really CARE for, don't mind to me how they look there, if you can make me care for the fate for a block of wood. Men you are good!
That includes things we don't like. Yes you could make a hypersexualized character and..actually make people think about what it means. True in some games it is purely to draw male attention, le sigh! Think nude women mods in skyrim... or that Xblades!
But in some games it does has to make you think "Why does this person wears so little.." and what it means to you.
Maybe this is bovine excrement. But to me there ought to be deeper thinking about things. And sometimes that is worth making something abhorent!
In that "The Evil Within" we see allot of things we don't like. But they do tend to make us think. Or at least feel, or a game like "The Path" which lets be fair has some darker things in it. artsy? a game? At least it makes you think.
And Skyrim, love this game but lets be fair it is a power fantasy. We like it but we ought to understand why we like it. It is a game where you are not ever powerless, unable to stop things from happening. While in some games, like Tombraider, there are scenes where there is stronger powerlessness. And that makes us feel and dislike!
In the end, yeah sometimes I have to Sigh at the portraying of how someone looks. But ya know that tells more about me then about others. In the end my dislike of certain things tells more about me then about the subject at hand.
And this is why I say No, it is good that there are games going that far. Just as there are games that break up our expectations. And games that have actually normal looking characters with actual human problems.
****
I wrote this after sitting with some coffee to think about these matters. A much more fitting post I feel.
On a forum there was a poll followed up by a long string of replies about sexualisation in games. Aka big breasted women wearing little clothes in fighting games. And it did make me think!
What do things mean, if we take games as another form of art. And before you all go like ?look at that high brow chair philosopher?, just stop doing that. If we take games as equal to books, movies, and plays. Then actually is this bad. Should the make of said game feel ashamed?
Now this lead me to think about a few games. Skyrim for instance and its moddibility. Many mods are naked women or mods to remove clothes of women or mods to make the women in the game look hotter. Depending on how you define hot. It is just freaking pixels guys! Of course Skyrim though it has a great story does attracts males quite a bit. Because it is a power fantasy, you are the hero and are going to solve every problem. Oh look at that you can even defeat dragons actually you are THE ONE.
They even expect you to be a nord male at the start, a viking warrior in the shortest of term. How more Arnold Schwarzenegger can you get.
Then there is on the other side of the coin Laura Craft in the new Tomb Raider, there are scenes where she is definitely not in control. And not in a way of ?look the bad guy shows up lets make sure the player knows this guy is bad so lets remove all control from them?. More in a sense of being in very bad situations and yes at times there are the much hated QUICK TIME EVENTS to not get killed.
There this young women is portrayed as having to grow to be strong because the world is dangerous around here. A much more fullfilling hero type. And no she doesn't wears a chainmail bikini and she doesn't either comes with mega memaries. She just is attractive as person because she is a person there. She is written to be an actual person! A person you can care for and hope to get to the end.
Where the hero is skyrim is so empty so ?power fantasy? that you don't care. Actually there are very few characters in Skyrim I care for. Some I like because they are odd but do I care? Nah not really!
And there are also strong female characters out there who yes dress rather skimpy or rather provocative but are strong and use sex as a tool. To make others mostly men do their bidding!
You know I really like books because at least you get a history, a backstory, a why someone acts certain ways. Who is someone, what made them that way... something lacking in the writing of some videogames.
I just watched Interview with a Vampire and I got the book still waiting for me to read it fully. I don't like reading these tiny books, it is one of those ...pocked edition, so it is so small. Font also tends to be smaller and it just reads less nice then a big fat book. A big fat book with nice rounded big letters waiting to be read.
So I don't say that makers of videogames with chainmail bikinis or modmakers with chainmail bikini babes should be ashamed. They use something very basic, very animalistic, our basic animal desire for sex. And if you are a young male that is enough. If you get beyond 30 ? you want a person.
I do definitely hope for more games with very good characters. Ones you really CARE for, don't mind to me how they look there, if you can make me care for the fate for a block of wood. Men you are good!
I voted no, because they shouldn't feel ashamed of something that is obviously earning them money. It doesn't hurt anyone if somebody buys a game because of the jiggle physics.
I don't understand where 'Eye candy to appeal to our audience' got translated to 'attack on every woman ever'.
To be honest, I doubt the creators care at all about the whole debate on whether it offends someone or not. They add half naked women, the money rolls in.
If people bought games based on half naked men, you would see more of that.
I say this in about every thread about this but here I go again: If something like this offends you, get over it. There are actual issues in the world that actually matter. Redirect your tender sensibilities into righting them.
I don't understand where 'Eye candy to appeal to our audience' got translated to 'attack on every woman ever'.
To be honest, I doubt the creators care at all about the whole debate on whether it offends someone or not. They add half naked women, the money rolls in.
If people bought games based on half naked men, you would see more of that.
I say this in about every thread about this but here I go again: If something like this offends you, get over it. There are actual issues in the world that actually matter. Redirect your tender sensibilities into righting them.
grassgremlin said:
No one buys a game because of "tits" or "ass"..... no one....
Expect the people who buy eroge games
Should writers/creators feel shame for sexualization? In a nutshell? No.
Should writers/creators feel shame for lazy/sexist sexualization or blatant pandering? Absolutely.
EDIT: For clarity, I should point out that I never said it's bad or that the lazy ones should be forced out. Just, y'know, acknowledge it.
Should writers/creators feel shame for lazy/sexist sexualization or blatant pandering? Absolutely.
EDIT: For clarity, I should point out that I never said it's bad or that the lazy ones should be forced out. Just, y'know, acknowledge it.
If sexualization is part of the character mental state, it should be ok. We meet people everyday who are not ashamed at all for sexualization of themselves. They are who they are.
It's when the mental state and the state that the character is presented don't mix that we can start seeing problems. The creators want us to respect that character, but they presented that character like a blowup doll. That can create a distance right there. It's even worse when that character falls in love with you because you said X and you did Y. I always had trouble with RPGs who did that. It doesn't feel like romance when you clearly picked an option. It feels empty. Anyway, I've digressed.
So yeah, write characters that does proper sexualization first. Then, you can actually sexualize them.
It's when the mental state and the state that the character is presented don't mix that we can start seeing problems. The creators want us to respect that character, but they presented that character like a blowup doll. That can create a distance right there. It's even worse when that character falls in love with you because you said X and you did Y. I always had trouble with RPGs who did that. It doesn't feel like romance when you clearly picked an option. It feels empty. Anyway, I've digressed.
So yeah, write characters that does proper sexualization first. Then, you can actually sexualize them.