Sexuality in gaming, your stance?

[King Zeal]

I am arguing that your argument that "they don't need to have those skimpy outfits" is a worthless argument to make when "need" was never the reason they had it in the first place.

I don't know how to make that any simpler. I've tried to draw examples of other needless choices made in similar products in order to highlight that need is rarely the reason many decisions are made, but that seems to have only confused you so I will just keep it as cut and dry as i can.

No one was arguing games need skimpy outfits, not even the games made with them. Thus arguing against them on the basis of need is a pointless waste of effort.

I'm more confused that you thought those were legitimate examples when they weren't. Also, what are you using to define "need", because some marketing groups would tell you that you absolutely need a sexy character to sell a title properly. NNot that I agree with it, but the attitude exists.

And... I never said opinion couldn't be expressed, merely that you were wasting your time trying to express it in the way you have and then explaining why it was such a waste of time and effort to do so. I could go into how it can actively harm what you want for trying to express your opinion in the manner you have, but we never even got that far.

Then do so. Telling me I'm wasting my time isn't your concern. It's my time to spend how I wish to.

I could just as easily turn that around; why are YOU wasting YOUR time arguing?

Ah, was wondering when that word would pop up. No, I am afraid you are confusing how factors relate to gender with any product and how actual sexism works. Sexism, as I have always understood and heard it defined, is a discrimination or bias of gender because of gender itself.

Is this going to be one of those semantic debates over a term which has no strict definition in academia?

Agree or disagree about the morality of that all you like (I would probably agree with you), but the simple truth is that decisions are motivated by data that supports it.

Not always. Bias confirmation, self-fulfilling bias, and other fallacies can and often do play a part.

Them using a male on the cover is no more or less sexist then a company selling skirts using images of women. Both reflect a cultural expectation and a financial backed history, as well as do nothing to actually discriminate, bar, prevent or stop anyone buying it for how they advertise, merely reveal they know what traits sell well for each product and who is most likely to react favorably to that advertising. They will appeal more to one gender over the other, to be certain. That is because of how our culture promotes the dimorphus nature of our species which in turn influences how individuals purchase things which cycle back into what companies provide.

Again, that's not how marketing works. Marketing creates a dynamic and then convinces people to follow it. Marketing is not about finding out what people want and then finding ways to give it to them. It's about telling people what they want.

The game industry was not a gender binary industry inherently. It was marketed as one, starting in the 80s, and then continued in the 90s. They didn't make games for boys and then market them toward them. They TOLD boys that they wanted these games and then marketed it toward them specifically.

Now, assuming you follow with me that far,

Knock it off with the stealth insults.

snip

Sexism can be systemic. Meaning that an action by itself may not be sexist, but becomes sexist through systematic discrimination. For example, choosing to sexualize women because society accepts it, and you want to be accepted by society. You aren't sexualizing a woman because she's a woman yourself, but you're doing what society told you to do, and society is sexist.

Well, to me, and good ol webster, exclusion means shutting out all others, denying entry, preventing participation.

or as the first response google gave
1. deny (someone) access to or bar (someone) from a place, group, or privilege.

I'm not seeing the issue. We're talking participation being denied through presumed beliefs about a gender, and denial from privileges like having popular entertainment marketed en masse to your gender.

Then entire argument you are trying to make is just horribly flawed. As I used for an example before, a product not made to your taste no more excludes you then a hamburger joint excludes a vegetarian.

Again, we're not talking about a single joint. We're talking about an entire industry. So once again, this would be like every restaurant in an entire ethnic neighborhood selling meat products. Which is actually a real social justice issue Hindus and Buddhists face.

But you not liking a game and deciding to not buy it is not you being excluded. Stop sounding like an entitled fool and please stop trying to sell that bullshit here, it is embarrassing to see someone who thinks they deserve a product so much that when it is not made to suit them or their demographic that it is somehow excluding them.

Not responding to insults, just to let you know.

Am I excluded because I want a game with a bright green quadripede animal man as the player character but it is not made?
Am I not allowed to play because I want a game without QTE and the products offered has them?
Am I being prevented participation in a game that has me playing as a female character dating pidgeons because I don't feel it appeals to me?

Yes, if the games are marketed specifically to ignore your tastes as a consumer. If you are a huge unused demographic (like, women) and it's absolutely important to you to have these features in a game, then you are indeed being excluded if marketers ignore you.

And you are very right, it was a short sighted and ill funded endeavor. But, since they have no requirement to give those endeavors the same treatment as the multi-billion dollar franchises, I can't fault them for going smaller there. After all, if all you do is sell SUV vehicles, you don't throw all you money into subcompacts and hope it has the same payout. You invest less and make a trial run and use the results of that to judge if you want to invest more. Games have had little success with what you want, and while that sucks, that effort made and made repeatedly every other year is more then we deserve even. When we don't support that stuff, it stops being made. That is not exclusion, that is a badly performing product being cut because it performed badly.

False argument. For one thing, it's not about getting the same "endeavors". It's about getting competent endeavors. If you agree that the game wasn't marketed well, then that ends any point to be made. Because if the marketing was incompetent or botched, then the product was not a fair attempt at inclusion.

Yeah, they have biased perspectives based on who bought their games last time. Not surprising they would get a test group of people in the demographic they want to sell to who would have likely bought games before and will again. That they didn't get a hugely diverse group is no more surprising then a clothing store not getting a highly varied group if they were doing market research on dresses and shirts for young girls. The have group they are marketing to, and much like how the shirts meant for young girls can still be sold to and worn by fat overweight adult men, neither are games excluding anyone from purchase or enjoyment.

Again, that isn't how marketing works. If you don't focus test a diverse group of people, you do not get accurate data from focus groups. While focus groups typically have people in a particular demographic, what Naughty Dog reported was that their publisher was flat out using bias confirmation to make assumptions that hadn't even been conclusively proven yet.

Informing people is great, and guys like Jim and EC do great for helping to spread information, but there is a limit to what they do. There is a reason they spread things out, talk about lots of topics instead of dwelling on one. People get sick of hearing about it. People are sick of people complaining about it. And while they may love a good righteous rage about things, it wears on people to hear it all the time and it starts to harm the cause for it.

[snip]

It is nothing knew. Beating that dead horse solely to reiterate that can drive people away or make them more apathetic.

Not really. If anything, people start talking about these issues. Like we are now. The longer you debate with me, the longer you disprove this whole argument. Even if you don't agree with it, you took the time to answer. You're anything but apathetic, and judging by the number of replies on subjects like this, a lot of people aren't either.

At this point, it doesn't matter if people, like you I suppose, are actively against talking about sexism in games. The fact that you're doing so right now means that me, and other people like me, can become more visible to each other. People are having discussion panels about the subject, creators are talking about it, and journalists are talking about it

So far, it's been pretty positive.

Secondly, it is that you are fighting a mountain here. They have their current huge success and lots of data supporting their actions, nothing you can say will change that sort of entrenched company culture at this point.

Even if that were true (which it isn't), that's none of your business, is it? If you think it's pointless, then what you're doing is equally pointless.


Everything else is redundant, so I'll end it here.

 

[Terminal Blue]

That's a vague response. How so? This is not to say the it isn't flawed in some ways (most of psychology is, as it is young), but dismissing the study with "evolutionary psychology is problematic" is...problematic .

Firstly, having learned from these debates, I think it's important to point out that not all evolutionary psychology is bad. If every premise put forward by evolutionary psychology was false, then this could not exist.

However, when we're talking about complex aspects of human social or personal experience being wholesale "evolved" then we're well outside of the territory of good science. In fact, we've strayed into the dark, murky world of pop-science and at this point, yes, there are huge problems.

The single minded pursuit of unverifiable genetic determinants of human behaviour which cannot be evidenced but which must exist (despite the fact that there are often established explanations which impose infinitely fewer original assumptions) is just not good science. Making grandiose statements and engaging in fantastical storytelling about the social structuring of a period of time from which very little archaeological evidence has ever been recovered on the basis that they must resemble some kind of 1950s notion of socially ideal behaviour (which arguably doesn't even hold true today) is not good science either.

Let's take two fictional researchers. A social scientist goes out and does a study of men's attitudes to women in media. Their argument might be summarized by the following inductive inference.

Case: "The respondants to my study are men"
Observation: "The respondants to my study objectify women."
Rule: (It is therefore a reasonable probabilistic law to say that) "Men, at least within the society or stratum occupied by my respondents, objectify women."

An evolutionary psychologists then goes out and does the exact same study. But their logic is likely to be very different, it looks more like this.

Rule: "Social phenomena result from the expression of genes"
Case: "The men in my study objectify women"
Result: (It is therefore certain that) "The objectification of women is an expression of genes".

Notice that the "rule" for the social scientist is a result of the study. It's something which is determined through applying inductive reasoning to the observation. The rule is not a certainty, but it doesn't have to be certainty and isn't being represented as one. It is probabilistic likelihood.

Meanwhile, the rule for the evolutionary psychologist has absolutely nothing to do with the study at all. It is a pure certainty, and moreover is completely unfalsifiable because no outcome within the study will possibly make it untrue.

 

[Qtastic]

Most studies I've researched regarding sexuality, sexual preference, and titillation have indicated that a lot of what people consider to be "inherent" to both genders merely describes current trends, but it can't reliably pre--scribe what a gender will desire. In other words, nurture almost always beats out nature. At least when it comes to what people find attractive.[/quote}

Media is, more accurately, made by a culture. A person is influenced by their individual experiences to create based on values their culture has taught them. For example, if I decide to have my heroine in fishnet stockings and high heels, I didn't formulate the idea that this was sexy on my own--society has already decided it is, and I'm just following along. If "sexy" were an aggregate, objective fact between genders, then people of completely different cultures would agree on what is sexy. But, that rarely is the case. Societies ebb and flow like tides on what sexiness is and means, and different cultures can look at what their neighbors think of as the pinnacle of sexiness and go "meh".

Smiling is a reaction, not a value. It's not the same as a "hardwired" assumption of what sexiness is. One problem with trying to determine whether or not people are "hardwired" to assume that certain things are sexy is the fact that many people develop sexual awareness at varying ages and from varying stimuli. And because people are not raised in vacuum, the values of parents and the adults around them trickles down. That doesn't mean people have the same tastes as the others around them (there would be no differences between hetero/bi/homosexuality if there were), but it means that as people build their lifetime checklist of what they find sexy, influences from the outside world will shape them in some form or fashion.

We as humans may have similar ideas of what is attractive, but a lot of it is still nurture rather than nature.

One problem: I never said that a universal concept of sexiness existed, I said that people (men AND women) appear to OBJECTIFY women when given brain scans. That's it. Nowhere did I say that ATTRACTION was hardwired. In fact, I didn't even say that objectification was: I said it might be. I would fully agree that sexiness, in great part, is a product of nuture (things like facial symmetry tend to be more universal, though).

 

[DarthSka]

The problem with that is looking at video game consumers as one audience. Though there might be a 53/47 split overall, that number can vary for different genres or games. Just like with any media, there are specific audiences within that larger audience. I watch movies, but I don't watch romantic comedies or Saw-like horror movies. I read books, but I don't read autobiographies, romance, or mystery novels. I play video games, but I don't play puzzle, racing, sport, or RTS games. So if a game or genre has captured a specific audience, they're likely going to continue to make a product with that audience in mind.

What you describe is another problematic thing in the various media--industry: a reinforced gender binary. There's no reason a particular genre can be said to inherently be "for" a certain gender or sexuality. Girls like power fantasy as much as everyone else, but there's not much pure girl power fantasy in the industry. Even stuff like Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw are more about a particular fetish than it is being a female power fantasy.

The issue with that is that gender binary isn't forced upon consumers, consumers choose to make it so. Products may be made with a characteristic in mind, like a group's sex, but they do not force anyone to not partake. That's why I disagree with your recent discussions on the definition of exclusion. It is not the "social justice" definition of not taking one's preferences into account. Exclusion would be preventing someone from partaking in the game, which they do not. The consumer is still free to play the game, but they themselves are the ones excluding themselves from the game. Your restaurant analogy doesn't hold up. The vegetarian is free to come to the meat filled establishment, but they choose not to partake.

 

[Drejer43]

My stance?
I don't really care that is my stance.
Though I do agree that your last two images look hideous, but I think that's just sexualization gone wrong.

 

[Therumancer]

Sexuality has it's place in games directed at adults, whether presented maturely or an immature letting down of the hair. Of course it depends on the game in question and whether it's been shoehorned in or not. In some cases I feel games fall into the Hollywood trope nowadays of just about everything trying to tell a story needing to have some romance thrown in, oftentimes leading to a love interest tacked on in a story that really doesn't need one.

I tend to more or less ignore arguments about what women are wearing in video games, because it's pure nonsense, typically guys trying to sound enlightened and forward thinking, without really "getting it". At the end of the day female characters created by female writers and artists tend to wear the same stuff, and honestly when looking at anime and the like you'd be surprised at how many women are actually involved in a lot of those character designs. "CLAMP" for example is an all female team, and especially if you look at some of their art books, they are hardly prudish. That's before you get into artists like "Julie Bell", or simply reading the descriptions of what characters look like or wear in various fantasy novels written by and largely for women.

To put things into perspective, when I look at say "Ivy Valentine" I see nothing wrong with the artwork at all, or her outfit, given that we're dealing with a work of fantasy. Sure, she's not wearing heavy armor, but then again neither are most other characters, and those that are get exactly zero benefit from it. What's more since guns are apparently around out there (according to the Mitsurugi storylines in particular) that's when people stopped using heavy armor, and it actually makes some of the characters like Siegfried running around in platemail seem like the biggest idiots, especially seeing as they are allegedly meeting other wanderers cross country as opposed to entering into some kind of organized 'melee weapons only' arena. She seems to be a "go to" example for overdone character artwork, but is oddly one of the easier ones to defend, especially considering that almost every character in this game is freakish in some way.

Truthfully, I'm surprised this topic recurs so often. Given that pretty much every time a story based RPG comes out one of the first questions is whether or not there will be "romance" and "payoff scenes", and people get irate if the answer is "no", I think the answer to the basic question is obvious, that few, if any people have a problem with it, and as I pointed out, it even gets to the point of popping up in games where it really doesn't add much to it, something which I believe "Saints Row IV" parodied rather cleverly.

 

[Azkar Almsivi]

More hard gay strippers and gruff unshaven female space marines! More of everything! Why complain and fight and try and control each other? More of everything!
If you want to change an industry built entirely and only around MONEY (warning: money is everything), you need to accept common truths. Supply and demand. Demand more games with equality, show interest and desire in that product and someone will make it.

The reality of it all is that males and females do usually view things as sexy differently. But if you want to leap over that little hiccup, talk with your wallet. If there are no chances to talk with your wallet, vocalize what you'd like until a dev' says "Hmmm, maybe Jessica the Electrician saving Prince Jeremy from the Dragon Queen would sell!"

Remember the cold truth/nightmare fuel or words of wisdom: The world does not and never will owe you anything.

You want it, make it worth providing. Capitalism ho!

 

[Shadowstar38]

Then you can't use it as an example of fairness and inclusivity.

I think you're going to have to just be SOL then. Not every creative decision is going to match your tastes. Now if someone does want to make whatever game it is you're looking for and publishers give them the finger, then I can agree that's an idiotic process. But oppression and sexism doesn't describe what I see going on here.

 

[lapan]

Well first of all, at least one of those pictures is from Queen's Blade, an Ecchi Harem Fighter anime, not a game. Queen's Blade however I think well illustrates a valid point however. Nobody, and I mean nobody, who dislikes over the top fan-service style ecchi harem animes is going to watch Queen's Blade. It has a decent enough story, and the characters are actually well developed and likable, but the whole package has a presentation that screams fan-service, and it doesn't detract or break the story because it was designed to be that way right from the beginning.

Pretty sure Queens blade had at least one game

 

[Xenedus]

If a game has over the top sexualized female characters I will probably not play it unless it is an AMAZING game. I find it rather annoying that the developers of these types of games spend more time making your female character look like a stripper than they do making them look like a badass. I don't pick up a game because I'm looking to stare at women in thongs I pick up a game because I want to feel like a badass and it's hard to feel like a badass when it looks like you forgot to put on your pants.

 

[Eve Charm]

Eh there is way to much going on in this topic. Sexuality in gaming, why not. I still think of gaming as an non-consequence hobby or at least games themselves as far as Keeping the man, or woman, or religion or whatever down. Despite any studies gaming is far less of an impact the the other Main Stream medias.

Breaking it down in it's baser instincts, Why wouldn't you want to play as or with or just have characters on the screen, visually pleasing to you? It's like asking if you rather have a $1 or $100, a Honda or a Ferrari, a apartment or a mansion, so why then do you think MOST people would want someone in some dirty baggy hoodie and jeans over a guy in a snazzy suit or a girl in a skimpy red dress. When you can only have one or the other, Why wouldn't you have the more marketable better looking one? It's common sense. Sure not everyone has the same tastes, but they can figure out and create characters most people will AT LEAST find pleasing.

Now that being said, there is a point where trying to go to far with sexiness or what people think are sexiness, has an opposite effect and hurts your game or whatever. Your not going to take a something seriously when the characters all look like roid-rage and boob jobs half naked running around the world. Unlike saints row would have you believe, Sex appeal doesn't always increase the bigger you make boobs and bulges.

Finally I don't know how people enjoy a game if they need to stop and psychoanalysis all the characters to see if they are too sexy or troupes... Just enjoy the damn game.

 

[King Zeal]

One problem: I never said that a universal concept of sexiness existed, I said that people (men AND women) appear to OBJECTIFY women when given brain scans. That's it. Nowhere did I say that ATTRACTION was hardwired. In fact, I didn't even say that objectification was: I said it might be. I would fully agree that sexiness, in great part, is a product of nuture (things like facial symmetry tend to be more universal, though).

Still not the point, though. The brain scans in question are still typically given to men and women years after their personal sexual habits have been formed based on the culture they live in. For that argument to be true, a person who is a complete blank slate, like a small child raised by wolves or something, would have to show the same signs of objectifying one gender over another. That's the problem social scientists have when accepting any arguments about "predisposition"--brain scans only show you the end result, not how they got there.

The issue with that is that gender binary isn't forced upon consumers, consumers choose to make it so. Products may be made with a characteristic in mind, like a group's sex, but they do not force anyone to not partake. That's why I disagree with your recent discussions on the definition of exclusion. It is not the "social justice" definition of not taking one's preferences into account. Exclusion would be preventing someone from partaking in the game, which they do not. The consumer is still free to play the game, but they themselves are the ones excluding themselves from the game. Your restaurant analogy doesn't hold up. The vegetarian is free to come to the meat filled establishment, but they choose not to partake.

Have you ever heard of the term "Food Desert"? It's a term which loosely means an unavailability to access healthy food or nutrition without considerable distance or effort. This doesn't mean it's impossible to reach it, just that it's considerably more difficult to find it for impoverished people or certain ethnic groups.

Exclusion, like all other forms of discrimination or prejudice, can be systemic. It can be done with no conscious effort or desire from the person doing the exclusion. For example, public bathrooms are generally an example of being exclusive unintentionally; intersex and transgender people often have a hard time safely using a bathroom without harassment. They are not excluded because the building owners specifically wanted to do so. They are excluded simply because no one ever thought of their problems, because it usually doesn't concern them. Sure, transgender people can still use either bathroom they want, but not without great discomfort or risk to themselves.

In this case, though, the exclusion is done both by marketing, publishing, and their fellow consumers. Marketers ignore their needs/wishes, publishers stereotype them intentionally to draw in a target market at their expense, and other consumers either act like it's "rare" or "weird" when they play games anyway, sexually harass them for the games they play, or say the games they play aren't important.

That's systemic exclusion.

I think you're going to have to just be SOL then. Not every creative decision is going to match your tastes. Now if someone does want to make whatever game it is you're looking for and publishers give them the finger, then I can agree that's an idiotic process. But oppression and sexism doesn't describe what I see going on here.

And that exact scenario has happened before.

Besides, that, I didn't say anything about "every" creative decision matching my (or any group's tastes). I was talking about that specific game. In short, the game may have tried to take a step in the right direction, but it was a weak step. I give them a C+ for effort, but it's not an example of an inclusive game in the slightest.

 

[UberPubert]

Have you ever heard of the term "Food Desert"? It's a term which loosely means an unavailability to access healthy food or nutrition without considerable distance or effort. This doesn't mean it's impossible to reach it, just that it's considerably more difficult to find it for impoverished people or certain ethnic groups.

Except that doesn't apply to this situation.

First of all, video games are a luxury item, not a necessity. Don't try to compare the two, especially when geography isn't really a concern so long as you have a stable internet connection.

Second of all, no one's being excluded from it based on their class or ethnicity - and I don't mean in a "targeted demographic" way - I mean if they have money it's theirs, no first world nation allows someone to bar access to potential customers because of it.

Exclusion, like all other forms of discrimination or prejudice, can be systemic. It can be done with no conscious effort or desire from the person doing the exclusion. For example, public bathrooms are generally an example of being exclusive unintentionally; intersex and transgender people often have a hard time safely using a bathroom without harassment. They are not excluded because the building owners specifically wanted to do so. They are excluded simply because no one ever thought of their problems, because it usually doesn't concern them. Sure, transgender people can still use either bathroom they want, but not without great discomfort or risk to themselves.

In this case, though, the exclusion is done both by marketing, publishing, and their fellow consumers. Marketers ignore their needs/wishes, publishers stereotype them intentionally to draw in a target market at their expense, and other consumers either act like it's "rare" or "weird" when they play games anyway, sexually harass them for the games they play, or say the games they play aren't important.

"Systemic", you keep using that word, but either you don't quite know what it means or you're consistently failing to explain what the system actually is.

On the subject of intersex/transgender harassment...uh, you know that would probably be illegal, right? I'll break it down: A man stepping into a woman's restroom is not illegal, it is a rule by the building owner done for customer comfort. They have the right to ask violators to leave and if they refuse the police can be called on a technicality of trespassing, but if the person being harassed is legally recognized as being of the "proper" sex, not only will the police very likely leave without so much as a warning but the harassed could probably sue the owner for sex discrimination and harassment. And if it's part of a big franchise store? They'd probably settle out of court and toss in a donation to the respective group as part of a PR stunt just to offset the backlash. The "system" could not be any more in their favor unless they built even more bathrooms.

Onto the rest: Marketers ignoring the needs/wishes is not done in any kind of exclusionary manner, as a good marketer discriminating on sex may wear the facade of a boy's club but no effective one will ever explicitly state that no girls are allowed. Publishers are much the same, but in this particular instance I think you simply have them confused with the development team. In particular, the design of "sexy" characters is actually created by up to a handful of concept artists, and is chosen for final production under publisher supervision, the original design is not handed down (otherwise, what would be the point of having the artists?). As for the consumers...meh. If people have a problem with other people having a problem with what they play they should begin avoiding those people, you can't call it part of a "system" when it's actually just a loud minority that decides not to play nice and are by no means limited to sexism in their raging bouts of online psychopathy.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Well first of all, at least one of those pictures is from Queen's Blade, an Ecchi Harem Fighter anime, not a game. Queen's Blade however I think well illustrates a valid point however. Nobody, and I mean nobody, who dislikes over the top fan-service style ecchi harem animes is going to watch Queen's Blade. It has a decent enough story, and the characters are actually well developed and likable, but the whole package has a presentation that screams fan-service, and it doesn't detract or break the story because it was designed to be that way right from the beginning.

I don't think there's an issue of sexuality in gaming being too overt, I think it's a problem of mindset. Psychologically speaking we live in an age where most first world societies treat sex as a far greater taboo than violence. It's become ridiculous to the point of people asserting sexism anytime you show a slight bit of cleavage. The thing is, sexualizing a character is not the equivalent of objectifying their gender. I genuinely like women, my best friends are women, I treat them all as equals with respect and courtesy, and yet strangely I enjoy the hell out of "giant boobs in your face" fan service in games and other media.

I get that some people think it's distracting, and that's fine, don't play it, don't watch it. I hate horror slasher films because I dislike gore or cheap jump-scares, so I don't watch them. We all have personal tastes and I have no issue with that, but I do take issue when people try to impose their personal tastes as a platform for reforming an entire medium based around their own sensibilities.

That level of thinking will only lead to the equivalent of The Hays Code for videogames.

I would say that Queen's blade may very well have good story and characters but it doesn't scream that from the offset like you said; though my question is why did Kill la Kill do so well despite the clear fanservice with Ryuko and Senketsu.

Back on track, the mindset you stated seems more American than anything. Using Japan as a reference since that country is a major source of games and gaming influence, they supposedly treat sex as a normal part of life and often have had fanservice and other sexual elements in shows that are essentially saturday morning cartoons (Gureen Lagoon is an example I bring up every time). America has always had more of a puritanical background due to the influence of Christianity and the fact that religion has a somewhat stronger role in the country.

As for imposing tastes to reform the medium, yes the medium does not have to change one bit but it does have to acknowledge that implications can be disturbing or that people are just bored with giant boobs. I'm a 19 year old guy so I can't say that sexy should be gone forever, but I can say that we need more variety and more effort in characterization.

 

[King Zeal]

Except that doesn't apply to this situation.

First of all, video games are a luxury item, not a necessity. Don't try to compare the two, especially when geography isn't really a concern so long as you have a stable internet connection.

Second of all, no one's being excluded from it based on their class or ethnicity - and I don't mean in a "targeted demographic" way - I mean if they have money it's theirs, no first world nation allows someone to bar access to potential customers because of it.

Whether games are a "luxury" item or not has nothing to do with the point at hand. The food desert example was only being used to demonstrate an example of exclusion, not to say that games were just as important. Whether or not you're being excluded does not depend on the severity of the thing you're being excluded from.

And no, they don't allow people to be barred based on ethnicity directly, but they can be excluded through geography, region, economic class, etc., which may disproportionately affect one ethnic group more than another.

"Systemic", you keep using that word, but either you don't quite know what it means or you're consistently failing to explain what the system actually is.

Or neither. And a "system", in this context, is any series of actions (or lack thereof), decisions, and/or social/cultural norms which contribute to an end result.

On the subject of intersex/transgender harassment...uh, you know that would probably be illegal, right? I'll break it down: A man stepping into a woman's restroom is not illegal, it is a rule by the building owner done for customer comfort. They have the right to ask violators to leave and if they refuse the police can be called on a technicality of trespassing, but if the person being harassed is legally recognized as being of the "proper" sex, not only will the police very likely leave without so much as a warning but the harassed could probably sue the owner for sex discrimination and harassment.

I can tell you for a fact that isn't what happens. https://www.aclu.org/translaw

Although the law is slowly catching up to protect transgender people, the restroom problem is one which is very common. It's a trans-rights issue currently.

Onto the rest: Marketers ignoring the needs/wishes is not done in any kind of exclusionary manner, as a good marketer discriminating on sex may wear the facade of a boy's club but no effective one will ever explicitly state that no girls are allowed.

Again, that's not how exclusion works. As I said above, you can be exclusive without intent.

Publishers are much the same, but in this particular instance I think you simply have them confused with the development team. In particular, the design of "sexy" characters is actually created by up to a handful of concept artists, and is chosen for final production under publisher supervision, the original design is not handed down (otherwise, what would be the point of having the artists?).

Publishers are not separate from the creative team. Increasingly in the AAA industry, publishers flex creative control over a product. They will flat out tell a developer what to put in the game.

As for the consumers...meh. If people have a problem with other people having a problem with what they play they should begin avoiding those people, you can't call it part of a "system" when it's actually just a loud minority that decides not to play nice and are by no means limited to sexism in their raging bouts of online psychopathy.

No, consumers are included because, as so many people have noted, this is a capitalistic enterprise. Loud minority or not, the consumers contribute to it.

 

[King Zeal]

Again, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an entire industry showing a bias toward a specific group, often based on stereotypes and assumptions, and sometimes based on self-fulfilling logic.

 

[UberPubert]

Whether or not you're being excluded does not depend on the severity of the thing you're being excluded from.

But whether or not the thing you're being excluded from is actually important does matter, and using the juxtaposition of a "Food Desert" and a "Video games with sensibly dressed female characters desert." is dishonest in any context. A better comparison would be a "Cruise liner desert" in a landlocked area.

Or neither. And a "system", in this context, is any series of actions (or lack thereof), decisions, and/or social/cultural norms which contribute to an end result.

A lack of actions is not a quantifiable system and if - as you point out later they can be unintentional to begin with - then what proof do you have the system exists at all?

I can tell you for a fact that isn't what happens. https://www.aclu.org/translaw

Well you haven't, because that's not what it says. It says the laws I outlined are being upheld in a number of states and have only been turned down on a couple of occasions.

Publishers are not separate from the creative team. Increasingly in the AAA industry, publishers flex creative control over a product. They will flat out tell a developer what to put in the game.

But they're not the source, and while publishers have total control to say "Yes, this is good." or "No, that's not acceptable.", you would be extremely hard-pressed to find publishers blatantly leering over an artist's shoulder on female costume design, and in more than a few cases (again with the Dragon's Crown), the control is almost entirely in the hands of the artist.

No, consumers are included because, as so many people have noted, this is a capitalistic enterprise. Loud minority or not, the consumers contribute to it.

But the minority of consumers do not, the consumers that spend the most money are - and the majority of consumers are not guilty of the accusations of sexual harassment or insults. And you can't even make the argument that the majority of consumers are the ones enabling that kind of behavior since almost all of the harassment is sent by way of private messaging channels and/or is moderated. You're blaming the entire consumer base as being part of a "system" based on the actions of a loud minority who's behavior isn't actually tolerated and users are totally able to ignore.

 

[Eve Charm]

Again, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an entire industry showing a bias toward a specific group, often based on stereotypes and assumptions, and sometimes based on self-fulfilling logic.

If it were this, it would be a problem. What it is 90% of the time tho, Market data and market testing and previous sales numbers show, catering their game toward other groups, DOES NOT get them profits or as much of a profit as catering towards another group. Studios can't waste a Triple A or even an A budget making a game for an audience that -on paper- is just as big but when it comes to money from sales is -no where near as close-

 

[King Zeal]

But whether or not the thing you're being excluded from is actually important does matter, and using the juxtaposition of a "Food Desert" and a "Video games with sensibly dressed female characters desert." is dishonest in any context. A better comparison would be a "Cruise liner desert" in a landlocked area.

Not really. Again, exclusion has nothing to do with importance. If a luxury liner is difficult for people of a certain region, demographic, or group to obtain, then yes, they are being excluded.

A lack of actions is not a quantifiable system and if - as you point out later they can be unintentional to begin with - then what proof do you have the system exists at all?

A lack of action is basically ignorance or apathy, which is one of situations exclusion creates. Accounts from people in the industry, for one. As I said, Jim Sterling has given plenty of examples on his show that I won't retread here.

Well you haven't, because that's not what it says. It says the laws I outlined are being upheld in a number of states and have only been turned down on a couple of occasions.

I'm sorry, what?

The first paragraph lists only 18 states that have Transgender Discrimination laws. That leaves 32 unaccounted for.

Also, on the restroom problem, it says this:

There's no clear answer because very few courts have considered this question. The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that even a law prohibiting gender identity discrimination does not necessarily protect an individual's desire to use a gender identity-appropriate restroom at work. The Tenth Circuit in 2007 upheld the Utah Transit Authority's decision to fire a transgender bus driver, based on a claim that her employer risked liability for her use of public restrooms along her bus route. In a non-workplace context, a New York appeals court has ruled that it is not sex discrimination for a building owner to prevent transgender people from using gender identity-appropriate restrooms in a building housing several businesses.

Some jurisdictions (e.g., Colorado, Iowa, San Francisco, New York City, and the District of Columbia), however, have indicated that denying transgender people the right to use a gender identity-appropriate restroom violates nondiscrimination laws. In addition, Washington's Human Rights Commission states that "transgender employees should be permitted to use the restroom that is consistent with the individual's gender identity." Some jurisdictions (e.g., Iowa, San Francisco, and D.C.) make clear that transgender people cannot be required to prove their gender to gain access to a public bathroom, unless everyone has to show ID to use that bathroom. Other jurisdictions (e.g., Chicago) continue to allow businesses to determine whether a transgender patron is given access to the male or female bathroom based on the gender on his or her ID.

Many businesses, universities and other public places are installing single-stall, unisex restrooms, which alleviate many of the difficulties that transgender people experience when seeking safe restroom access. While this is often a useful step towards addressing the needs of transgender people and others, we believe that transgender individuals should have the right to use restrooms corresponding to their gender identity rather than being restricted to only using gender-neutral ones.

In short, as I said, the law is changing, but what you said, that it's almost certain that you'll be arrested, or sued, is untrue. In some places, the law makes an effort to afford that protection, but in MOST places in the US, it isn't.

But they're not the source, and while publishers have total control to say "Yes, this is good." or "No, that's not acceptable.", you would be extremely hard-pressed to find publishers blatantly leering over an artist's shoulder on female costume design, and in more than a few cases (again with the Dragon's Crown), the control is almost entirely in the hands of the artist.

That's increasingly untrue. http://kotaku.com/we-need-better-video-game-publishers-472880781

But the minority of consumers do not, the consumers that spend the most money are - and the majority of consumers are not guilty of the accusations of sexual harassment or insults. And you can't even make the argument that the majority of consumers are the ones enabling that kind of behavior since almost all of the harassment is sent by way of private messaging channels and/or is moderated. You're blaming the entire consumer base as being part of a "system" based on the actions of a loud minority who's behavior isn't actually tolerated and users are totally able to ignore.

I'm not blaming the entire consumer base. I said that consumers contribute to a biased system. That's not the same thing as saying ALL consumers do it. Even a statistical minority, however, is more than sufficient to provide a toxic environment. Again, not even a majority of people harass transgendered people who try to use public restrooms, but the ones that do cause a problem for everyone.

 

[King Zeal]

Again, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an entire industry showing a bias toward a specific group, often based on stereotypes and assumptions, and sometimes based on self-fulfilling logic.

If it were this, it would be a problem. What it is 90% of the time tho, Market data and market testing and previous sales numbers show, catering their game toward other groups, DOES NOT get them profits or as much of a profit as catering towards another group. Studios can't waste a Triple A or even an A budget making a game for an audience that -on paper- is just as big but when it comes to money from sales is -no where near as close-

Which is another reason it's problematic. Again, as editors on this site have said constantly, that's why increasing budgets and greater production values for AAA problems create a vicious circle.

That's also why they spend their time talking to US, the players, so that we can be aware of what's happening, since much of the change depends on US to fix because publishers have no incentive to do so.