If your article is just repeating the study, you're implicitly agreeing with the study. Or at least presenting it as true. ,MarsAtlas said:
Study About 'Sexist Games' is Severely Flawed
- Thread starter Lizzy Finnegan
- Start date
Poor use of statistics for the most part. If I recall correctly the majority used a method unsuited for their system. The sad thing about it is that it's hard to determine whether it is due to lack of skill or if it was used intentionally to get that p-value required to get published in Nature.MarsAtlas said:
I also agree very much with this. Even the forums are less about discussing games than it used to be.MarsAtlas said:
That would only be true if the entire extent of the article was "There was a study". When you have 8 paragraphs parroting the study, all you're doing is reinforcing it as true. Thus we need articles like this one that actually look into the study.MarsAtlas said:
Funny thing about all these studies is that they dont treat men and woman as having a brain and games have mind control. Only way games effect people is if they have mental issues that gaming inforces or bad parenting and abuse. Ive been playing games for 30 years and it hasnt effected how i treat people and entertainment is what it is, entertaining.
Parents just need to interact with their kids, talk and play with them. Dont abuse them or let them stew in negativity alone in their room playing violent games. An yes I may be violent in games and love violent movies and enjoy them - in person i am a teddy bear and wouldnt hurt a fly. Because like most gamers, we know whats real and what is pretend. We love pretend violence but abhor real violence and sexism. These studies always skew the outcomes to prove a point.
Parents just need to interact with their kids, talk and play with them. Dont abuse them or let them stew in negativity alone in their room playing violent games. An yes I may be violent in games and love violent movies and enjoy them - in person i am a teddy bear and wouldnt hurt a fly. Because like most gamers, we know whats real and what is pretend. We love pretend violence but abhor real violence and sexism. These studies always skew the outcomes to prove a point.
Why is that a "boy thing"? What would be a "girl thing"? Shopping?WinterWyvern said:
Most of the ladies I know, friends, family, etc, love going to watch action flicks and play video games revolving around violence and explosions. My mom's favorite movies are the Die Hards, for example. That's nothing but Bruce Willis shooting people and one-liners for 2 hours.
Just because they're traditionally masculine concepts doesn't inherently mean that girls don't find them at all appealing. Sounds like your student has more of an issue than the games themselves if she 'doesn't play them' because they're 'boy things'.
Unfortunately, there are a large number of researchers who are less interested in producing good research than getting into newspaper articles. The horrible and infuriating thing about this is not that they do it, but that it is overwhelmingly successful. In today's competitive, increasingly neoliberal academic environment, self-promotion and having "impact" is generally seen by administrators and other non-academic staff as more important than actually producing high quality research.
What's primarily concerning to me is that I suspect most of the people who will quite happily condemn this article as a flawed attempt at attention seeking (which it is) would nonetheless be perfectly willing to believe all kinds of other junky, pseudoscience explanations which are produced solely to published in newspapers if those explanations happened to match their preexisting perceptions.
What if I were to claim that the reason girls and women are less likely to play games is because "women have inferior spatial reasoning" or "women are inherently more social". Both claims are utter junk, both rely on the same kinds of terrible research practice described in the article, and yet because most people are inclined to believe that "men are from mars and women are from venus", they are likely to find these kinds of terrible explanations for behavioural differences credible. Bad science plays on personal credulity. There are people who will accept this conclusion because they want to believe it is true. However, to take this as an isolated case is to ignore the fact that most of us want to believe that various things are true, we are all susceptible to the same form of manipulation.
My advice to everyone is to take this, and use it to become a more critical consumer of scientific media, because almost every science article printed by a newspaper is just as much junk as this one.
Whatever the source of the problem, it is not coincidental that it is expressed in those terms. Noone is suggesting, I hope, that women are "inherently" turned off by games with violence or male protagonists, but it is a major component of the way in which many women express disinterest in these things and one that deserves to be acknowledged as a meaningful social force which pushes many women away from playing games.
Let me put it this way. I presume you identify as male (apologies if I'm wrong, it's a reasonable assumption on this site, which in and of itself says something). Can you honestly say you would be jumping to play a game about a female protagonist shopping for clothes, even if it was super hardcore and genuinely challenging? Remember, just because it's a traditionally feminine thing doesn't inherently mean you find it unappealing, it's just very likely that you do.
What's primarily concerning to me is that I suspect most of the people who will quite happily condemn this article as a flawed attempt at attention seeking (which it is) would nonetheless be perfectly willing to believe all kinds of other junky, pseudoscience explanations which are produced solely to published in newspapers if those explanations happened to match their preexisting perceptions.
What if I were to claim that the reason girls and women are less likely to play games is because "women have inferior spatial reasoning" or "women are inherently more social". Both claims are utter junk, both rely on the same kinds of terrible research practice described in the article, and yet because most people are inclined to believe that "men are from mars and women are from venus", they are likely to find these kinds of terrible explanations for behavioural differences credible. Bad science plays on personal credulity. There are people who will accept this conclusion because they want to believe it is true. However, to take this as an isolated case is to ignore the fact that most of us want to believe that various things are true, we are all susceptible to the same form of manipulation.
My advice to everyone is to take this, and use it to become a more critical consumer of scientific media, because almost every science article printed by a newspaper is just as much junk as this one.
Why does it matter though? Are we supposed to go through some kind of Freudian analysis to determine that someone doesn't play games because a cat farted on them when they were a baby.Areloch said:
Whatever the source of the problem, it is not coincidental that it is expressed in those terms. Noone is suggesting, I hope, that women are "inherently" turned off by games with violence or male protagonists, but it is a major component of the way in which many women express disinterest in these things and one that deserves to be acknowledged as a meaningful social force which pushes many women away from playing games.
Let me put it this way. I presume you identify as male (apologies if I'm wrong, it's a reasonable assumption on this site, which in and of itself says something). Can you honestly say you would be jumping to play a game about a female protagonist shopping for clothes, even if it was super hardcore and genuinely challenging? Remember, just because it's a traditionally feminine thing doesn't inherently mean you find it unappealing, it's just very likely that you do.
It seems that personal responsibility and parental responsibility are two concepts that get no attention whatsoever because it would mean that one cannot blame others for the fault of a person or the way said person was raised should they be deemed not of an age to be held completely responsible for their actions. In fact responsibility dodging seems to be the human norm today. Blame it all on something else, no one's liable, criminal or otherwise...Cekil1 said:
VR is right around the corner and our precious GTAs, GOWs, CODs, and various FPSs won't seem so harmful when minors are downloading hardcore VR porn. But eventually, they'll move onto something else in a few decades after that.Cekil1 said:
How about this for a study? Someone find a correlation between amount of interactions/relationships with members of the opposite sex vs sexist views. In fact, let's extend that to racism, homophobia, and transphobia. I doubt people who interact with any particular minority group daily and often enough can keep the hate machine and generalizations going in the face of constant contradictory evidence. People are complicated and unique. Any time I get my dumb little angry prejudices going for awhile, I see examples that directly contradict the made up rule I created in my own mind.
Well, no, she's still wrong. You say 'Too Many' games are like that, but what measure is 'too many'? If the grand, GRAND majority of people buy and enjoy actiony explode-o-fests, then that's what's going to be made. Given the fact while a smaller number, there are plenty of games, especially now more than ever, that don't focus on direct action/violence, such as the walking-simulator genre, the complaint rings hollow.WinterWyvern said:
If the issue is that there are "too many" games of a genre she doesn't like, then that speaks to an impressive level of entitlement. As that would necessitate either producing fewer games for other people that DO like that genre, or that companies are supposed to go out of their way to cater to them to even out the ratio.
She's not excluded from gaming as a whole because she doesn't like action games. She's excluded from the action games particularly.
More than ever still isn't very much, and they typically don't get the same type of resources thrown behind them. And the problem is much worse around traditionally feminine ideas and themes. The problem to me seems to be the attitude is self perpetuating. Game makers make action games because those games sell, and they sell because those are the games made. Game companies rarely even think about alternate priorities in their game.Areloch said:
If most games are action movie analogs, why can't other analogs be relatively as successful? Let's take the obvious and easy one: the romantic comedy. You cannot tell me a romantic comedy game wouldn't sell well, Fire Emblem basically stumbled onto this one not long ago. Many people absolutely love the shipping simulator elements (as many people call them) of the game. And it isn't even particularly well done. It is simply all there is. Oh, and visual novels/dating sims, which... yeah. While there are a handful of good ones, they are not what most people (with traditionally feminine interests) are looking for in an actual romantic comedy.
And you joke about shopping games, but people love shopping. Men and women. I know several people who spend a ton of time on MMO's scouring the world for the best possible clothing. I used to be one of them when I had more time, my Blood Elf Mage has a pretty epic collection of dresses. There is a lot of demand for these types of elements but people rarely explore them beyond the most surface level. I think the reason the grand majority of people buy actiony explody games is because that is what is being made. The Sims is essentially a game about shopping and relationships and yet it is a massively successful franchise.
I love action games as much as the next person, but I do think there is probably room for more in the game industry than we are currently exploring. And I want to see those games, I think they sound fun.
You can acknowledge history, but you cannot undo it.WinterWyvern said:
Also just because more women and older people join the gaming scene doesn't mean the old demographic withers away, they aren't going anywhere and will continue to buy things.
Also also, "gaming" has about as much of a problem with women as the fashion industry does with men. An industry not appealing to one gender more, and it not being your gender, doesn't mean it has a "problem" with your gender, it's simple market economics to focus on the group that's most likely to buy your product.
P.S. Good article Lizzy, I don't normally read this sort of stuff but I like your prose.
It's my experience with women gamers on average, that they prefer story-driven games and role-playing.ThatOtherGirl said:
What would you say to that? Because I noticed for example with Mass Effect (was gonna post this in the other thread lol but screw it) a lot of women played it in the beginning, but that portion of the more devoted fanbase appeared to dwindle as time went on and the series became a much more linear shooter type of game.
In that case there was a significant budget and a good return on the investment, but the executives got greedy and figured they'd try and chase the CoD-dollar while hoping the RPG fans stay along for the ride.
And then on the subject of Fire Emblem, if you check that game's dedicated forums and there seem to be more girls than boys. The shipping may have a hand in it, but I know I wouldn't play through such a game if I didn't at least also enjoy the strategy element-- you need to be decent at that to unlock all those spicy romance conversations after all.
Is any of this accurate or are my experiences anomalous? Other people feel free to tell me I'm wrong.
Well, hard to say. If we are talking personal anecdotes, I would actually say that the male gamers in my group of friends are on average more into roleplaying and story than the female gamers. Which is why I said "traditionally feminine elements" instead of appeals to women. I don't think roleplaying and story are traditionally feminine interests though.Josh123914 said:
For example, I love clothes and dressing up my avatar in video games. My closest friend (a guy) also loves doing this. We have both purchased games in the past solely so we could dress up our pretty character in pretty clothes and send screenshots to each other. I would consider that a traditionally feminine interest even though it also appeals to some or even many men. As a side note, I know my friend and I would love a game that focused primarily on the clothing.
But that isn't to say that I am primarily interested in the "feminine" elements of games. I enjoy almost all of the things meant for male gamers even though by all accounts I am a girly girl. I prefer tight mechanics over story (though a great story will elevate a great game even further). I tend to like fan service (both male and female) as long as it is competently done.
I have heard that the Fire Emblem fanbase is currently very female heavy, and I do think that has to do with the more feminine elements that are in the game, though I think that is more a function of how people have learned to approach media. Relatively few men are willing to admit that they absolutely love setting up their romance subplots in a game like this, and that is where all the long term discussion of a game like Fire Emblem is going to be. There were already women playing these types of games, this just gave them the chance to be the voice, if you will.
And to bring it home, all but one of the "hardcore" gamers I know are women. Like, I know (including myself) three women into Dark Souls and no men despite our constant attempts to get our male friends to play it.
In my experience this is how these things go. There are plenty of people of any gender who like all sorts of things, but the game industry primarily caters to traditionally masculine things. I think there is plenty of room for traditionally feminine things.
That is all according to my personal experience.
I what now? I said im not aware of a medical expert supporting homeopathy, not that im an expert in behavioral studies. I am actually an expert in statistics though, and can recognize bad ones in this case.Yopaz said:
Also no, you said doctors, implying medical professionals. in this very post i quoted even.
I believe its a duty of every person that wants rational mind and intelligence to prevail to oppose falsehoods, including those presented in badly done "scientific" studies.MarsAtlas said:
Unless you know of a method on how to make news up when there are none to report.... wait nevermind this is a road ive seen taken way too often. Adding an additional story here does not make the site loose anything. hosting more stories on already existing site is very cheap and clearly given that there are already 2 pages of discussion here - plenty of clicks were done.
Maybe they shouldnt have fired all the staff then
But yes, i want more stuff in the news room as well, though clearly escapist is currently in trasition period moving offices so the activity is going to be down until things settle. Also what shilling for division you saw? I saw things about their bug fixes, which are quite important in gaming world given that The Division is arguably the best selling MMO ever and is therefore a big deal.Last time i remmeber reading an interview here the interview was deleted the next day because apperenly the developer didnt want it being posted anymore, so yeah....
On the contrary, the girl is wrong. She does not like something therefore she associates this as "boy stuff". Ive had plenty of female online-friends in games that had no problem with, as she put it "soldiers and stuff". The problem is that girl thinking that "soldiers and stuff" are for boys only.WinterWyvern said:
Also id say shes pretty ignorant about games if she thinks games are only "soldiers and stuff". Heck, the vast majority of games i play does not even have soldiers in them.
I dont remmeber the site i read it on but there was a study done to see the gender demographics based on genre of games, probably 4 years ago or so. Women absolutely dominated the RPG genre. so this sounds quite accurate to me.Josh123914 said:
