Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[white_wolf]

Gaming doesn't need feminisum's girl power/ empowerment trope where they simply give the fem lead all male characteristics like their stoc, they kick ass no matter if its a brick wall or a 1000lb robot they're punching, see Vanquez or Kill Bill, not quite man with boobs but it could go worse if too much feminisum is thrown in where the fem lead is so empowered her male supporting characters could be made to be weak unable to function without her or made to be idiots incapable of doing anything she doesn't tell them to do. Its one thing to have the men fallowing orders its another to spell out their jobs to them like they're children.

What Gaming DOES NEED however are COMPELLING female characters that are multidimensional, non sex toy, women who have either internal or external strength, have personalities that are great, motives and goals that are logical, they need to be rememberable as in not carbon copies of one another unique personalities. When women say they want better representation most mean they want fem leads and fems in other roles that are portrayed as people not toys for boys or moonlighting dominatrices (or were on their way to that job when they decided to call in sick and help the lead in his journey) as or tools no more then your aid kit that have their uses then need to go on the shelf.

I think this is why the industry is hesitant to make fem leads more then rare because if they bumped that number up to often then each woman lead would have to be unique, individualistic, her own person with her own goals, maybe a love interest, and be relateable on an emotional level Nillin is a good start here. However being the game industry itself shows a high president for carbon copy heroes that don't require much effort save make his cataylist for shooting everybody more bloody horrific then the last hit games lead this shows on average is they don't like to try to make compelling male heros let alone have to do it for women. The industry would have to try to make great heroes or at least ones that can related to more people and trying means time, larger game development times, maybe less realistic graphics, and less money in the short term. In the long term however that means more players of both sexes and new blood players joining up.

A reason I think having more compelling fem leads or games that market with their fem audience in mind but have leads be made male would be a bonus you get more depth in the characters, more realistic portrayals of both sexes so men crying sexism for current games can play these and not feel like thats a huge thing for them either, we get deeper characters both lead and supporting, games can be more innovative with themes and issues and plot types. These games could make whole new standards for story, protagonists, and general character depth. Women back in the 70's loved the games for their fun and fun can be inclusive not exclusive.

 

[carnex]

the fact that you consider Bayonetta the 'Greatest Female Empowerment of all time' speaks volumes of this) and your last little paragraph here is a 'Well my demographic is portrayed negatively but you don't see ME complaining' which is just... well, a dumb and apathetic thing to say. So I must ask before I pursue this any further - do you really, genuinely give a single fuck about this issue, or are you just here because people keep responding to you?

1) Well, once you understand what it means to own one's own sexuality you'll understad why Bayonetta is exactly that and why that chatacterer never became sex symbol in gaming world even if she flirts every single seconf of on screen time.

2) You must know which battles to fight to win the war. You don't go slamming the head against the wall. In financially driven market, like high budget gaming, unless you are reasonably big market your voice does not count.

And you must understand that just becouse you feel offended you are not entitled to change what you don't like. Just becouse you dont like something doesen't taht there aren't others who do. And where there is a market, someone is going to provide the product.

Not having something is not the answer, having opsite too is. You don't have any right to tell me what I should enjoy and what I should not. Not in a million years. Likewise I don't try to tell you what to like, it's your own taste ond opinion.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

As much as Giana Sisters stand as a decent game where the female protagionists are done fairly well, I gotta ask, how well known is that game beyond intense gamers who pay attention to gaming? The women who're turned off by the way gaming's gone aren't hanging out at the windows waiting, they need their attention grabbed.

I know it's bad form to just take a snippet out of your comment but this kind of bugs me... and honestly I'm having a hard time putting into words why because it seems so obvious. You're saying it's the fault of the game makers that the customers aren't looking for the game they're selling? If the person isn't even paying attention to gaming then I have to ask, why do we care about what they think? If the person is too lazy to actually turn on their freaking computer, get on the internet and do a google search of "games with female protagonists" then that's their fault, not the person that made the product.

It's fine as long as you have the context, I guess. ^^

No, it's not their fault that people aren't looking for the games they're selling. But if their games are hard to know about then it's not really the consumer's fault either, is it?

Who says a person not looking doesn't care about gaming? You don't always know what you want exists. There might be women who want to game, maybe go a bit beyond casual, but they see games where women do things in bikinis first and foremost. They might delve into indie but see thousands of games with dudes for dudes and played by dudes, and not see Giana Sisters, or something similar. Their computer might not be powerful enough to run those games smoothly.
Why on earth would a person who doesn't feel they're being catered to keep their fingers on the pulse of an industry that continually have bad news?
I'm not gunna say "Giana sisters needs TV commercials" though it'd really help, I bet, but word needs to spread somehow.
It helped that the game got on PSN, though as I know the game from there.

Google turns up decent results, but damn it all, does it not say anything that they gotta GOOGLE it? Who's -trying- to get their attention? Maybe ther are women who don't know they're gamers until they see a game that's desireable? Maybe letting non-consumers know they're included might actually have an impact?!
You gotta look at all the variables and all the angles. You can't just draw the shortest line. Sometimes you gotta connect the dots.

Honestly, when I got fed up with the sea of dude protagonists, I did what you proposed and googled for games, and even trying to keep my eye out for games with women in them, minus indie games as I've said it a thousand times, my laptop's terrible and I prefer consoles, I'm not even remotely satisfied.
My S.O. followed suit and she's largely burned out on games due to the drought.
There's a frustratingly small window of console games that allow a woman to be a non-sexualized woman. Consoles are really simple to get into. It'd be a falsehood to say that a PC is always 100% reliable, or even as reliable as a console.

 

[Redd the Sock]

I really only mention remember Me since it is put out there as "see how sexist the industry is" bits since it did have to fight for a female lead. My response it usually "did you buy it" and if the answer is no, then "it isn't the industry's fault for following the money, it's your for not supporting what you say you want when it gets here, and no excuses about the game sucking, you should have supported a game doing what you wanted." I could probably come up with some other games for the mold, but for now, it fits. The thing is, limited options should push up the sales charts if the demographic is there as, if you're the only female lead in town, you get all the business while males leads split the sales. When excuses get made, credibility of the fanbase gets shot, especially in the digital age where you aren't cut off from anything you want.

Well, no. If someone releases a bad product, you are not obligated to buy that product just because you stumped for one particular element of it. I love tactical turn base combat games and constantly shout for more to be made, but there's a given assumption there that I expect them to maintain a reasonable quality standard. I have a hard time thinking you'd find a single rational human being who would advocate for buying garbage simply because you approved of one thing.

You seem to be conflating "Want female leads" with "Females lead is the ONLY thing they want, everything else is irrelevant". I may want an amazing hot dog, but if you serve it to me in a moldy bun with shit for condiments, I'm going to send it back, and no amount of "YOU ASKED FOR A HOT DOG EAT YOUR HOT DOG" is going to convince me otherwise.

I didn't play remember me, but I don't recall reviews calling it toxicly bad so much as medicore. Less a moldy bun than a day old one. To borrow your first metaphor, you said you wanted a yellow car, but now want to complain you got a pontiac instead of a cadilac.

I don't confuse anything, I just acknowledge that the guys behind these decisions can be as smart as a really dumb box of rocks, and that making excuses as to why you didn't support things you wanted, just leach them to entrench to those that do show up. Just a theory, but this may be how gaming developed into what it is over the last decade and a half: efforts to please females gamers as a core market got met with excuses why the didn't like Parsite Eve, Tomb Raider, Heavenly Sword, or Final Fantasy X-2 to name a few, so they focus on Call of Duty and boobies for the guys and famville clones for the girls as those sold well. This isn't limited to gender issues. I get the same anger from people that want new IPs but only seem to support cloned sequels. In a case by case basis, you may be right, but over time, a pattern of excuses form. You end up coming off no different than the nitpicker I mentioned earlier: I want something, but it isn't quite right so forget it.

And in all honesty, even if it was toxicly bad, given the specific controversy preceding Remember Me's release, that might have been a good time to hold one's nose and put money down in support. Face it, publishers didn't think a female lead would sell, and poor sales will just keep that mindset true in their minds. I know you want to have your cake and eat it too, but sometimes you have to make a choice which is more important, supporting ideas you want more of, or only playing high quality games. Focus on the latter and you just send companies the idea that they don't have to listen to you on gender issues as you'll buy whatever over budgeted AAA title they crap out even if the only female character is a half naked princess to be rescued.

 

[NinjazInside]

Can i say that, this topic is a veritable minefield, yes there needs to be more female protagonists, less sexualisation and other myraid of topics sorted out. But everything is slow to change, and the OP was about how Feminism is abused, well at least that is my interpretation, my response to that is i have yet to meet one person that has done that, though maybe they were screaming with their mic turned off or such. I do well at games like Halo, and people have messaged me before very angry scathing words, and i have myself sent some really ridiculous messages cause i was happy and giggly at the time and they were more just silly things instead of intentional insults. I personally believe that the gaming community has its small portions of scum that keep this preaching of games are for guys, but that is becoming highly redundant, i enjoy playing with my girlfriend and destroying her, she takes it on the chin well, and fights evenly with one of my male friends.

But back on topic, i do not see how Feminism is a good topic to broach anymore, it is just a minefield of opinions and very little fact. I think one of the posts on the first page was some of the stupidest responses i've read, Lazy Writing, and why were these kinds of protector and protected stories created? Because at those times those who could catch and kill the food were in control. And those were the men. So society evolved around Men being the leaders, and that only ended within the last 100-150 years. And for a whole society to change we are going strong, making good head way. But that does not mean we should give up on the history of our cultures, they influenced how we think today, and yes women want to have more power. But that power should be equal, too often i have had arguments with militant feminists on what constitutes a feminist. My argument was i wanted equal rights between genders, sounds like feminism right? isn't that what they want right? that was completely disregarded, I was wrong apparently. Why was i wrong? because i didn't act enough? fair enough, i am passive about it, can't really change much only just turned 18 heading to University to study Physics.

But shouldn't winning hearts and minds be the goal of a movement like feminism? instead of shutting people out because they do not act enough like protest in rallies etc. no those protests/rallies should be there to get the attention of the average person and make them think about it, so when they are asked what their opinion is they have an informed answer, and as an MP in Britain recently showed, they will listen to their constituents, this occured over the issue on whether to intervene in Syria and the vast feelings of a Female MPs Constituents (who she emailed a good few hundred at least or so) were against intervention so despite her own views which she wisely refused to say, she went with her constituents majority view, a triumph of democracy in a small but significant way. But this could happen for feminism a push with enough supporters, not a few radicals that exclude others, could put forth a law that makes it illegal to set pay on gender, and any company found doing so will be punished by an appropriate sentence.

And this equally applies to gaming, enough demand for it and they will make more equally represented games, just do not forget that on the development teams of some of these games there are women as well, helping to shape them.

Rip into my post all you want, I will reply with my answers.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

As much as Giana Sisters stand as a decent game where the female protagionists are done fairly well, I gotta ask, how well known is that game beyond intense gamers who pay attention to gaming? The women who're turned off by the way gaming's gone aren't hanging out at the windows waiting, they need their attention grabbed.

I know it's bad form to just take a snippet out of your comment but this kind of bugs me... and honestly I'm having a hard time putting into words why because it seems so obvious. You're saying it's the fault of the game makers that the customers aren't looking for the game they're selling? If the person isn't even paying attention to gaming then I have to ask, why do we care about what they think? If the person is too lazy to actually turn on their freaking computer, get on the internet and do a google search of "games with female protagonists" then that's their fault, not the person that made the product.

It's fine as long as you have the context, I guess. ^^

No, it's not their fault that people aren't looking for the games they're selling. But if their games are hard to know about then it's not really the consumer's fault either, is it?

Who says a person not looking doesn't care about gaming? You don't always know what you want exists. There might be women who want to game, maybe go a bit beyond casual, but they see games where women do things in bikinis first and foremost. They might delve into indie but see thousands of games with dudes for dudes and played by dudes, and not see Giana Sisters, or something similar. Their computer might not be powerful enough to run those games smoothly.
Why on earth would a person who doesn't feel they're being catered to keep their fingers on the pulse of an industry that continually have bad news?
I'm not gunna say "Giana sisters needs TV commercials" though it'd really help, I bet, but word needs to spread somehow.
It helped that the game got on PSN, though as I know the game from there.

Google turns up decent results, but damn it all, does it not say anything that they gotta GOOGLE it? Who's -trying- to get their attention? Maybe ther are women who don't know they're gamers until they see a game that's desireable? Maybe letting non-consumers know they're included might actually have an impact?!
You gotta look at all the variables and all the angles. You can't just draw the shortest line. Sometimes you gotta connect the dots.

Honestly, when I got fed up with the sea of dude protagonists, I did what you proposed and googled for games, and even trying to keep my eye out for games with women in them, minus indie games as I've said it a thousand times, my laptop's terrible and I prefer consoles, I'm not even remotely satisfied.
My S.O. followed suit and she's largely burned out on games due to the drought.
There's a frustratingly small window of console games that allow a woman to be a non-sexualized woman. Consoles are really simple to get into. It'd be a falsehood to say that a PC is always 100% reliable, or even as reliable as a console.

Ah, I see what you mean now. I've always seen you as one of the better debaters of the other side in this discussion (In all the threads I've seen on it, on this site at least) so I was baffled by what I originally interpreted your comment to be.

 

[Lukirre]

I didn't read every single post in this thread, but I figured I'd offer my two cents.

Feminism fits perfectly well into gaming. Most people don't seem to realize this, but when a game is feminist, most people actually won't notice it. The only way you would notice it is if you're one of those people who says something like "Wait, what!? Women/men shouldn't be doing that!".

People throw around the world "equality" a lot, but that's not really the point. The point is freedom from restrictive gender roles. Skyrim was an immensely popular game. I played it pretty thoroughly, and as far as I could tell, women and men were free to explore their lives as they saw fit and no one in the game universe seemed to think anything of it. No one was bound by any sort of gendered expectation of how they should live their lives.

I mean, you still see sex-based phrases such as "They lost a lot of good men that day", where men = soldiers, or the whole "Sons of Skyrim", but in the end, those are minor points.

The main point is that there were no qualities of a person that defined them as a strong man or woman, there were just qualities that defined strong people.

That is a very strong feminist value that was injected into a game, and again, unless you're one of those people who said "Aela the Huntress should be mopping floors, not fighting with the companions", then you probably didn't notice it.


It's not about just cramming female characters into everything. It's not about making exceptionalized females who say "Pff, don't be a GIRL." It's about creating settings and worlds in which human beings are free to explore their lives as they see fit with no gendered restrictions. And when you play a game that does this, it doesn't feel like you're playing a game that does this. Unless of course the developers slap you across the face with it.

It's unfortunate that the majority of people in the gaming community (and many other communities, to be honest) stick to the false image of feminism that has been painted for them. If you take a little bit of time to research and understand the political movement, you generally find a lot of your previous doubts debunked. The problem with discussions about feminism on sites like this is that most of the people who choose to engage in them have never actually looked into feminist theory from primary sources. As such, the conversations inevitably become:

"Here is my argument to stop feminism in its tracks!"

vs.

"Here is information on feminism 101."

And no one gets anywhere.

 

[Lukirre]

It doesn't, and games like Dragon's Crown, Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball or even Rapeplay don't impact anyone either. Not even feminists. Can we agree on that at least?

Let's say I walk into a convention about astrophysics. I decide that, since I know very little about stars, that the Sun is not a star. Quite the opposite, our Sol is a Sun and nothing more. Suns aren't stars!

Now, the evidence is out there that our Sun is in fact a star, but I haven't chosen to look at it. I blew it off, considered it not worth my time, so on and so forth. The people in this convention are trying to explain to me why I am wrong, but they're using all these arguments that sound like they just plunged them out of their assholes. Ridiculous. They try to throw out some sources, but ah, I've never heard of them so how can I trust them?

Just ridiculous, really.

 

[Lukirre]

Except nobody has given me a source that these cause harm or impact anyone. Nothing. It's just people insisting that it's so and expecting me to believe them because they insist hard enough.

And this isn't some feminist convention where your ideas will be taken for granted, you have to actually prove your claims here. Like what actual scientists would have to do.

Crazy isn't it?

I'm too lazy to type this out again so I'm just going to quote myself.

The problem with discussions about feminism on sites like this is that most of the people who choose to engage in them have never actually looked into feminist theory from primary sources. As such, the conversations inevitably become:

"Here is my argument to stop feminism in its tracks!"

vs.

"Here is information on feminism 101."

And no one gets anywhere.

 

[Vegosiux]

...Except the largest demographics group in gaming is female Casual Game players, a genre of game that is lucky to include even a single character, let alone one with any complexity to them. Large numbers of gamer girls don't play the more main-stream AAA titles - now, I'm just hazarding a guess here, but don't you think that it's because AAA gaming doesn't appeal to women at all, with advertisements focusing on 'DUDESPLOSIONS!' or 'TITANIC TREMBLING TITTIES OF TITILATION!'?

And here's the issue that keeps frustrating me. Sure, those might be casual videogames, but they are still videogames, a significant part of the videogame industry in fact. A significant part that can't have this bigotry problem because it's designed in a way that would make it rather hard to have it. And hence my rant on the need for qualifiers and for people to stop just blanketing the entire medium, the entire industry with a broad generalization.

Seriously, here's a fun little game to play for you less apathetic people is to go to Youtube, look up video game advertisements for Main-Stream video games and wait to see how long it takes for a female character who isn't sexualized or Plot-Point Prisoner to show up - you'd be surprised how fucking long that takes to occur.

Representative for "mainstream videogame industry", not representative of "videogame industry."

You can do another one with game covers - you get a point every time you find one which is 'generic white middle-aged male with 5-o'clock shadow walking away from something while carrying weapon', 2 points for 'Female character with tits and/or arse on cover (double points if both at once)' and 100 points for 'Female character that's actually on the front cover, standing confidently with all her clothes on/anatomy in order and isn't the Last of Us'.

Why exclude TLoU? Isn't it a videogame? Just because it offers a counter-example? My opinion is you should simply give less points for it.

Also how many points do we get for this cover:

Or

Two very significant games that had quite an impact on the industry, and are quite mainstream. I mean, awarding them 0 points would not exactly be a good idea...

It's a fun game, and usually by the end of it you realize why there aren't that many girls in mainstream gaming - because they are literally ignored as a demographic when it comes to advertisement.

Firstly, I agree, the mainstream advertising is in danger of dying of testosterone poisoning these days. But notice how we keep talking about "mainstream", or, the expression I prefer, the "high-profile" and not the entirety of "videogame industry"?

I actually consider the talk about "videogame industry being sexist", with no qualifiers and no elaboration to be rather self-defeating, and defeatist. I mean, to address specific issues like "the best-selling stuff being to saturated with male protagonists and cover-based shooters", people need to get up and do some stuff...while by just raving about how "videogame industry is laced with sexism, that needs to change" they can convince themselves they're "doing their part" and feel good about it, without actually doing anything.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

It doesn't, and games like Dragon's Crown, Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball or even Rapeplay don't impact anyone either. Not even feminists. Can we agree on that at least?

Let's say I walk into a convention about astrophysics. I decide that, since I know very little about stars, that the Sun is not a star. Quite the opposite, our Sol is a Sun and nothing more. Suns aren't stars!

Now, the evidence is out there that our Sun is in fact a star, but I haven't chosen to look at it. I blew it off, considered it not worth my time, so on and so forth. The people in this convention are trying to explain to me why I am wrong, but they're using all these arguments that sound like they just plunged them out of their assholes. Ridiculous. They try to throw out some sources, but ah, I've never heard of them so how can I trust them?

Just ridiculous, really.

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

 

[Bruce]

A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%).

"Video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines"? That sounds awkwardly worded. And again, when trying to determine a prevalence of something in a medium, you don't only look at the "best selling" stuff.

First, I find this line of thought disingenuous at best considering if we then turned to an analysis of lesser titles you would probably say "Well those games sucked anyway", and second...

Top selling gaming magazines. That tells you the state of games marketing, which is a huge chunk of the overall problem. A lot of games which shouldn't be all that female unfriendly still come off as exactly that not because of anything the developer did but because of decisions taken by publishers.

Consider Evony - that game wasn't rendered female unfriendly because of the content of the actual game, but because of the highly sexualised adverts for it.

 

[wulf3n]

No form of activism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism] that tries to tell a creator what they can and can't create should have any right to exist.

 

[Vegosiux]

First, I find this line of thought disingenuous at best considering if we then turned to an analysis of lesser titles you would probably say "Well those games sucked anyway", and second...

How about we turn to the analysis of those "lesser titles" and you ask me what I thought of them? I think that way you'd have less chance to be completely wrong about what I'd say, because, well, you'd know what I said instead of having to assume what I'd "probably" say.

Or well, if you don't have the time or inclination to do that, we don't have to do it, I'll just ask you to stop assuming what I'd say in that case.

Top selling gaming magazines. That tells you the state of games marketing, which is a huge chunk of the overall problem. A lot of games which shouldn't be all that female unfriendly still come off as exactly that not because of anything the developer did but because of decisions taken by publishers.

A point I never contested, I actually agreed with it. The point I did contest is that the high-profile marketing is representative of the entire videogame industry, and I still maintain that it is not, the same way the best-seller market is not representative of the entire book market.

Consider Evony - that game wasn't rendered female unfriendly because of the content of the actual game, but because of the highly sexualised adverts for it.

Ugh, that game is just an outrage.

 

[Lukirre]

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

To sum it up, people like to say, "It's your responsibility to prove this to me!", but fail to acknowledge that it is their own personal responsibility to become educated on a subject.

If you were being antagonistic, then you'll probably try to be cute and say "Yep, still sounds like feminism." But it is important to note that this just proves my point.

Aaaaand just to cover all my bases, in the event that you think I'm saying that people who call themselves feminist would never ever not ever not even once do that, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that it proves my point that you've never looked into actual feminist sources.

And of course, if you weren't being antagonistic (or I guess even if you were), it's a bit sad that I have to put the disclaimers afterward, eh? Maybe this can open up a whole new vein of discussion wherein we analyze why people are more likely to attack grammatical slip ups, poor word usage, or utilize "possible message twisting" to suit their needs rather than make a unique argument.

 

[Bruce]

I believe feminism should stay away of games. And that for a simple reason: those who complain about it seem to not know jack about the issue. Let me elaborate: most people defend their complaints with "we're not trying to censor anything and we don't want all T&A (or whatever) to go away, we just want less". Here's the problem though, no one has ever given a percentage of the games in the industry which are actually sexist/women-unfriendly. Let me put some extra emphasis: no-one. How can someone make the claim there is too much of something if they don't know how much of said something there actually is? If you're going to act all self-righteous you better have a good case.

http://www.nouspace.net/dene/475/videogames.pdf

A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%).

Great way to prove my point. This doesn't address my point in the slightest.

Great way to illustrate why you claim you never see anyone show facts and figures - its because you plug your ears and yell "lalalalala" whenever anybody does.

One of the almost cliche arguments by feminists for something they find alienates them is that so many female characters tend to be overly sexualised. Here we see figures backing that up to the tune of 60% of female characters who appear in games advertising.

When you couple that with the findings from EEDAR which I know you know about, it becomes pretty clear that facts and figures do actually support the feminist narrative.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

Looking at a sample of 669 games that had protagonists with discernible genders, only 24 had exclusively female protagonists.

So lets consider - we can see that the vast majority of games have male leads. Of those with female leads, we can see a majority of them are still basically being marketed to men, in a way that a lot of women find a turn-off.

Not only that, those games also receive much less advertising, a quote from that same article:

Games with a female-only protagonist ? [received] only 40% of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually.

Oh, but lets pretend its all peaches and cream and all these facts and figures don't exist.

 

[Vegosiux]

Looking at a sample of 669 games that had protagonists with discernible genders, only 24 had exclusively female protagonists.

So lets consider - we can see that the vast majority of games have male leads. Of those with female leads, we can see a majority of them are still basically being marketed to men, in a way that a lot of women find a turn-off.

At best we can see that the vast majority of "games that had protagonists with discernible gender" have male leads. Which is not the same as the vast majority of "games". "Has a protagonist with discernible gender" is a qualifier, it narrows things down to a subset of the entire industry.

As for the point about the marketing, I addressed the issue I have with that in my previous post.

It's not the points you're making that get my goat, it's how people are generalizing them.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Eh? I thought you were arguing FOR feminism. Why are you making an argument against it? Because the person believing the sun isn't a star sounds more like the feminists than the gamers.

To sum it up, people like to say, "It's your responsibility to prove this to me!", but fail to acknowledge that it is their own personal responsibility to become educated on a subject.

I don't know. Sounds kind of like the accusations by feminists of gaming leading to negative views of women or spousal abuse followed by gamers asking for the evidence that supports it.

If you were being antagonistic, then you'll probably try to be cute and say "Yep, still sounds like feminism." But it is important to note that this just proves my point.

Aaaaand just to cover all my bases, in the event that you think I'm saying that people who call themselves feminist would never ever not ever not even once do that, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that it proves my point that you've never looked into actual feminist sources.

And of course, if you weren't being antagonistic (or I guess even if you were), it's a bit sad that I have to put the disclaimers afterward, eh? Maybe this can open up a whole new vein of discussion wherein we analyze why people are more likely to attack grammatical slip ups, poor word usage, or utilize "possible message twisting" to suit their needs rather than make a unique argument.

Unfortunately, "possible message twisting" seems to be unavoidable when it comes to this topic. If I were to be childish then I'd blame it on the person that kicked off this debate about sexism in gaming more than a year ago since she seems to love doing it. If I were to be mature though then I'd blame the natural proclivity of discussions like these to fray nerves to the point that someone slips up somehow.

 

[RafaelNegrus]

I believe feminism should stay away of games. And that for a simple reason: those who complain about it seem to not know jack about the issue. Let me elaborate: most people defend their complaints with "we're not trying to censor anything and we don't want all T&A (or whatever) to go away, we just want less". Here's the problem though, no one has ever given a percentage of the games in the industry which are actually sexist/women-unfriendly. Let me put some extra emphasis: no-one. How can someone make the claim there is too much of something if they don't know how much of said something there actually is? If you're going to act all self-righteous you better have a good case.

http://www.nouspace.net/dene/475/videogames.pdf

A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%).

Great way to prove my point. This doesn't address my point in the slightest.

Great way to illustrate why you claim you never see anyone show facts and figures - its because you plug your ears and yell "lalalalala" whenever anybody does.

One of the almost cliche arguments by feminists for something they find alienates them is that so many female characters tend to be overly sexualised. Here we see figures backing that up to the tune of 60% of female characters who appear in games advertising.

When you couple that with the findings from EEDAR which I know you know about, it becomes pretty clear that facts and figures do actually support the feminist narrative.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

Looking at a sample of 669 games that had protagonists with discernible genders, only 24 had exclusively female protagonists.

So lets consider - we can see that the vast majority of games have male leads. Of those with female leads, we can see a majority of them are still basically being marketed to men, in a way that a lot of women find a turn-off.

Not only that, those games also receive much less advertising, a quote from that same article:

Games with a female-only protagonist ? [received] only 40% of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually.

Oh, but lets pretend its all peaches and cream and all these facts and figures don't exist.

I feel you're distorting the numbers a little bit here, because it then says a couple of sentences down "In all three genres, a little under 300 games gave the option of a female lead." So that includes games like Mass Effect that have the ability to customize your character.

And while you're right, I agree with Vegosiux, these numbers do not prove that there is a problem with sexism in videogames as an entire medium. Heck, if we want to examine only the most played videogames then really we ought to be examining Plants versus Zombies 2. But hey, let's look at Amazon and see what they say: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2013/videogames

So that has 7 games on that: The Last of Us, COD BLOPS 2, Just Dance 4, Luigi's Mansion, Animal Crossing, Halo 4, and Bioshock Infinite. Two games that are celebrated for their female characters, two games that have no gender, and then 3 games that have male protagonists and are not known for their female characters. Say what you will, I don't think that's too bad.

If you look at the top 100: http://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-video-games/zgbs/videogames/ref=zg_bsar_tab_t_bs#1
There are 90 or so games on there, many of them are repeats. 5 are football games, mostly the same game on different consoles. Because let us not forget that the year's version of Madden is almost always the top selling game of the year.

So let's not forget the staggering diversity of our medium, and that if we restrict our views down to a couple of genres (i.e. action, shooters, and rpgs which is what we seem to do) then we miss out on much of what gaming is to other people.

 

[Vegosiux]

You know, just putting it out there...
the fact that a part of the video games industry is not complex enough to have sexism in it DOES NOT MAGICALLY EXCUSE THE REST OF THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY. Now, if you'd read my post (for the love of god, please tell me you read my post), you'll notice most of it was focused ON mainstream gaming and it's problems - mainly because mainstream gaming is what people assume you've played when you identify as a 'gamer' or when you 'want to get into video games' and is easily the most advertised of gaming out there (seriously, I'm looking at a Killzone Advertisement as I type this).

Yes, I read your post, and yes, it was focused on mainstream gaming and its problems. I just keep maintaining that problems with part of the industry do not mean the entire industry has these problems and that I'm getting frustrated about people talking about the industry while meaning a part of it and going to great lengths to clear up what exactly it is we're talking about.

High-profile gaming and advertising has a problem with a heavy male-centric bias? Yeah, it does. All I keep saying is that's different from the entire industry having that problem. And it's way easier to deal with a perceived problem if you slice it up a bit, realize some parts aren't problematic and then go for the ones that are.

Which, uh, seems to be exactly what you're doing, so I don't think I actually have a problem with it now that it's been cleared up.

...No, still works for Indie games and Casual games. It's a very efficient game, really.

Oh I'm sure it works for them too, but I'd say you'd get different results, results representative of indie games and casual games, respectively. If you wanted results representative of the entire medium, you'd need to play that game with the entire medium.

TLoU isn't included because it's one of the games that said 'Fuck that noise' and actually fought for the right to put Ellie on the front cover - so, it's not much of a counter-example anyway, if anything indicative of the sexism in video game advertisement seeing as they had to fight to have one of the main fucking characters on the cover.

Yet it's an example how things can be changed with some effort. Look, I'd be elated if all kinds of prejudice and bigotry just disappeared because we want them to. But we'd be foolish to expect they'll just go away if we keep yelling at them loud and long enough.

And I make it a point to simply not buy entertainment products if they employ practices I find offensive. Those include but are not limited to, fucking over the consumer with nickel-and-diming, churning out sequels like there's no tomorrow instead of doing something creative, and indeed, trying to sell me the product by sticking tits in my face.

As for the other two - as influential as they were on the games industry, they don't qualify for this game due to not having characters on them. I should have clarified that rule of the game of 'Actually should have characters on the cover art' dealy. The game is meant to show the sexist approach to marketing video games in gaming advertisement when it comes to characters, so it doesn't cover every single game out there (Pokemon doesn't qualify either, unless FireRed LeafGreen use a female Charizard/Venusaur on their covers).

That's different then, and under those conditions, it's very much the way you say it is. I mean, two centuries from now, people will collect game cases featuring a grim-expressioned thirty-something male soldier walking slowly towards the camera like they collect stamps today, at this rate (and no I'm not being sarcastic)

Ahh, for fucks sake, you did the whole 'Oh, well THEY aren't doing anything but talking about it, so they're useless' thing. *Sigh* one of these days, people are going to stop saying that...

I did accuse people of taking the path of least resistance, yes, because that's what I see them doing. Didn't call them actually useless, though, just...giving themselves more credit than that kind of effort is worth, I suppose. Still more effort than just liking something on Facebook, yet not quite as much effort as actually looking into where the problems are and taking them head-on.

An example I used in a slightly related thread, if a female gamer gets abused by a bigoted brodude manly man, I'm not going to start talking about sexism in the community, I'll tell the girl "Pssst, if you want, I can show you a trick or two so you can wipe the floor with the next asshole who treats you like that"; and tell people I happen to see n a ame with him "That guy's a bit of a prick, try to not to give him too much attention". Of course I haven't single-handedly solved the problem of bigoted morons in the community, my contribution is tiny (there's just one of me and more assholes than I have hours in a day to deal with them after all), but a lot of people making such contributions will make a difference.

Or, if you see a guy harassing a woman in a bar, you poke the bouncer and have him encourage the dude to call it early tonight, rather than step on a soapbox. (I mean, that's what I'd expect a person to do, bit of an assumption on my part, I admit)

Now, this isn't a "one or the other" thing, obviously you can do both, I'm just saying one of them seems like a more effective course of action to me; to tone down on adversarial rhetoric of my previous post a little.

Not giving money to devs/publishers doing/creating stuff we find disagreeable will affect them more than posting threads about it. On the other hand, giving support to those creating stuff we want to see more off will again make more of a difference than just saying we want less of what's currently being made. I'd say Kickstarter is a good thing for that, but seeing as a large chunk of internet-using world is region locked from utilizing it, I don't think it's quite there at this point.

Sadly, I have somewhere I need to be like... 10 minutes ago, so I can't really keep going; But if you really want 'qualifiers' (whatever that means) and elaboration and that, here you go:

http://gamestudies.org/1202
http://jvwresearch.org/
http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos
http://scholar.google.com.au/schhp?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

there you go, 4 databases filled to the brim with Academic Sources discussing sexism in video games, the industry, etc. Whatever the fuck you want to float your boat. I'd provide links and shit to support whatever i'm saying, but...

I'll look into that, then, thanks.

Not kidding about that '10 minutes late thing'.

No rush, we can continue this anytime you have time, if you're still up for it.