Look around the site you are on, or go look at the videos from the gem this site once had "Extra Credits" Yahtzee, Movie Bob, Jim Sterling and Extra Credits have all been talking about this issue (women in gaming)and all of them have backed the claim that serious work is required in this field, several of them (among many other important voices in gaming) have mentioned Sarkeesian by name, hell Sarkeesian even works as a consultant for a triple A game maker now.Vegosiux said:I am aware you did not say it. But "more female protagonists" is another of the main points, one that gets focused on a whole damn lot, and to be completely honest; I'm pretty confident that Sarkeesian herself wouldn't give TLOU and Bioshock Infinite too much credit because in both those games the female characters lack agency, they're still serving more as plot devices than independent characters. She tends to take issue with female characters lacking agency as she has demonstrated time and again so it's a pretty safe assumption to make. And coupled with the fact that the best way to give a character agency is to make them the protagonist...bobleponge said:Also, I made it pretty clear that it wasn't "Sarkeesian + video games = good female characters." She's part of a larger trend of people talking and writing about this stuff, which existed before her obviously (though I do think the attack on her Kickstarter brought the issue to the forefront of the culture). And those weren't examples of games with female protagonists (again, you assume I said something I didn't! "straw-man"), they were examples of developers making a demonstrable effort to make their games more inclusive with stronger female characters.
Secondly, your claim was that Sarkeesian's approach is "working" and that it's evident in how developers make an effort to make stronger and better-written female characters. You did nothing to back that up, since what you'd need to show is a demonstrable influence from Sarkeesian's approach that caused such efforts, or indeed, that there are efforts that (would) have not existed before this entire thing exploded in the first place.
"Raising awareness" is a pretty expression to use, because it implies one's actually putting some serious contribution towards tackling the issue. But I'm a rather cynical old curmudgeon, so I see especially this kind of "raising awareness" as a bunch of hot air. Hot air is nice and all because you can do plenty useful stuff with it, but it's not who produces the hot air that should be looked upon with admiration and respect, it's the one who harnesses it. Of course; nothing prevents one from harnessing their own hot air, but you don't do that by producing even more hot air.
If you can't see the change that has been wrought it's because you don't want to but it's clear as day. She made sexism in gaming a mainstream issue, I don't agree with her on whole bunch of stuff but she is right on the central issue, games have a problem with their portrayal of women. The mainstream media has been reporting on this because of the waves Sarkeesian made.
This is always how non violent change occurs by causing debate and conversation, by making an issue topical, now gamers including myself look at portrayal of women in games with a far more critical eye and that inevitably means bad, stereotypical and harmful portrayals are slowly on the way out.